Blue Sun Down, a FireflySW Crossover
by Darth Marrs
Summary: The crew of Serenity takes a job three weeks after Miranda that puts them on the trail of secrets more terrifying than anything they've ever seen. SWFirefly crossover. Firefly AUWash and Book live!
1. Prologue and Chap 1: The Three Hills Job

**Blue Sun Down**

A AU Star Wars/AU Firefly Crossover

Timeframe:

27-19 BBY Star Wars

2518 CE Firefly

Characters:

Quinlan Vos, Jedi Master,

Cast and Crew of Firefly 3 weeks after Serenity.

AU Wash and Book were both severely injured, BUT LIVED (because I wanted them to).

Former Operative (Character's name is Samhael Afolabi [Yoruba for Born Into Wealth)

New Operative (Code Name: Walsingham).

* * *

**Prologue: A Ghost of Memory**

_Serenity_ moved as a shadow in the black, drifting with minimal power through the endless void of space.

Within this shadow of a ship moved a shadow of a person, almost transparent in her slimness, ethereal in her silence. She skimmed barefoot through the gantries above _Serenity's_ cargo hold, listening; observing. Healing. She was a creature of darkness, with large, expressive eyes that sucked in the meager illumination of the ship's sleep cycle and peered with vision beyond that of her fellow crewmates.

Three weeks ago, they were on Mr. Universe. Three weeks ago, she wielded a chipped axe and a bent sword made from an atmospheric propeller against at least eighty Reavers. She remembered the feeling of exhilaration that coursed through her veins as everything in her life, all the pain and anguish and memories that were never hers coalesced into that one, brilliant moment of purpose.

Three weeks ago, River Tam realized she was a killer.

There were other killers on this ship, men and women capable of and willing to take life. She could hear them now—sense, perhaps was the better word. The captain was talking to Inara on the flight deck. Since their brush with the Operative, Inara had elected to remain on board. Each night for the past three weeks, she had tended to the captain's many hurts, obtained in his fight with the Alliance's most deadly assassin.

"Did I show you where he stabbed me?" Mal said for the tenth time that evening.

"Yes, Mal," Inara said. River could hear the smile on the Companion's lips; she could feel the love there that neither Mal nor Inara could quite conceal any longer.

On the other side of the ship, in the Infirmary, she could hear Zoe reading to her husband. Wash nearly died on Mr. Universe, pierced through his stomach by a Reaver grapple. It was a stroke of luck bordering on the miraculous that the grapple itself stopped the internal bleeding, and even more so that it missed both the heart and the lungs. There were three cracked vertebrae, but the spinal cord was not damaged.

Simon, who was not in very good shape himself after the fight with the Reavers, was able to remove the grapple with the help of the Alliance medical personnel on loan from an oddly recalcitrant Operative. With state of the art facilities on an Alliance cruiser, Simon managed to salvage much of Wash's stomach and intestines, save for four feet of large intestine that suffered the worst of the damage. That section of Wash's digestive track now rested in a large jar filled with preserving gel under the pilot's panel on the flight deck, right next to his plastic dinosaurs.

She could hear Wash now, interrupting Zoe. "Honey, I'm hungry. Could you get me something to eat…oh, that's right. My stomach's gone. Never mind."

Zoe chuckled and kissed her husband passionately. "I'm glad you're not dead, Honey."

"Me too, Honey," Wash said. It was not a joke, and neither laughed.

"Honey?"

"Yes, my beautiful warrior woman?"

"You're not a leaf on the wind."

A pained snort of breath. "Now you tell me." A moment later, Zoe continued reading.

Simon was in Kaylee's room. Neither were killers. In fact, they were the only two truly innocent people on the ship, despite Simon's beliefs about her. If she were anyone else, River would have blushed at what she sensed. Consummation. Passion. Heat. Simon was happy with Kaylee. Happy in Kaylee. He was relieved to be free of River, if only for a night.

River padded on through the ship. She could sense Jayne in his cabin, doing Jayne things while looking at dirty pictures. Jayne was a killer. Like her, simple in his purpose, though less complex in execution. He liked looking at women without clothes. River ran a hand over her body like the women in his magazines. Would he like her if she were naked and moved that way?

She giggled like the newly turned 18-year-old girl she was.

Then, there was Book. He knew too much, but nothing at all. Normally she did not have to try to read thoughts. She tried with Book. Tried and failed. He was a blank spot to her, which was why he frightened her so much when she first met him.

When they reached Haven, before the journey to Miranda and Mr. Universe, they found all of their friends there dead, even the children. Book, however, the Operative left alive but injured to ensure that Mal and the rest got the message.

Once again, Simon's expertise saved the good Shepherd. The damage to his body was bad enough, but the wreck on Mr. Universe almost did him in. However, as was the case with Wash, the Operative offered Alliance medical aid, which Mal accepted grudgingly.

The day they lifted off, after completing all their repairs, a shuttle landed and two Alliance soldiers carried Derrial Book to Serenity on a stretcher. He looked thinner than River remembered, but she still recognized the gleam of wisdom and mischief in his eyes as she stood watching at the top of the ramp.

"Your room's ready, Shepherd," Mal said when the older man arrived.

"Bless you, my son."

"No hard feelings about the Operative coming after you instead of us?" Mal asked.

Book made a point of examining the extensive damage to Mal's face, and the outright ginger way he still walked, even after nearly two weeks. "I'd say we're about even," the Shepherd said with a wry smile.

Book was awake now, River knew. She closed her eyes and listened. She could sense knowledge in him, knowledge of things he had no right to know. Things he could not have known and should not have known. But that was all she could get—impressions of secrets like shadows of ice under a cold ocean, hinting at frozen behemoths just under the surface.

She drifted down to him as if caught in a whirlpool. Book sat propped in his bed, reading his Bible like always. It was a revised Blue Catholic Bible, the current and most widespread incarnation of Christianity in the Alliance. He did not look up as she opened his hatch and dropped lightly in, and continued to read as she took a seat on a flimsy chair in the corner. The only decoration was a cross on the wall over his bed.

"How are the new meds holding up?' Book asked while turning a page of the well-worn book with his thumb. He did not look up.

"Better than before, but not as good as Simon hoped."

It was like this every night now. She was drawn by the promise of knowledge he carried in his mind, but stayed because with him alone her mind was not assaulted by other's thoughts.

"So what do you think of the job tomorrow?"

"People will die," she said.

He put the Bible down. "That sounds ominous."

"Ominous," River repeated. "Presaging ill-fortune. Foreshadowing evil or tragic developments. Portents of misfortunes to come. There will be many misfortunes to come."

Book was looking at her now, his warm eyes concerned. "Tell me, River, what do you see?"

"I see a Shepherd reading a Bible," she said, looking back at him. Then her eyes shifted focus from him to something beyond him. Beyond the room. "I see a Shepherd reading a Bible on a world of death. On bodies stacked high like pancakes with bloody syrup on top and giant mouths laughing as they consume the pancakes one bloody bite at a time. Their forks are very large."

She closed her eyes and pressed the heels of her hands against them. "She doesn't want to see any more."

A moment later, River dropped her hands and looked at him with a blank face. "You know who she is, don't you?"

"I know what you were meant to be, River. Not who you are. Only you can say for sure who you really are."

"They mean, I meant, to be mean, to be sent, to kill and slash and destroy events," she said in a sing-song voice. "I am a killer."

"If that is all you are, then you are what they meant you to be," Book said, a touch of sadness hidden in the deep folds of his voice. "But when you jumped into the midst of the Reavers, did you ask yourself why?"

"To save my Brother. To save my friends. To kill."

"To defend. A gun can be used for evil purposes, but the gun itself is not evil. You were created as a weapon, River, but that does not make you evil. Nor does it even mean you have to be a weapon. God gave you Free Will, and no matter how hard the Alliance tried to take it away from you, you have it still."

"She is a ghost," River said. "A memory of someone else. So many memories that aren't hers."

"What do you see when you remember things?"

"Pain. Fear. Flashes of light and red eyes. Two by two, hands of blue." She shuddered and closed her eyes. "You know what she…I am, but I can't see the answer in your head."

Book put the Bible down and stood slowly, as he did everything after being shot. He walked to the girl's side and gently guided her from the chair to the steps leading up from his cabin. "Go to sleep, child. Rest. Everything will look better in the morning."

She turned suddenly and stared at him with intense concentration. "A cyclone is coming. Ragnorak. Armageddon. We're all going to die."

"Is it coming tomorrow?"

She seemed to sink in on herself and yawned. "No, not for a few more weeks."

"Then go to sleep."

She nodded and left his room. When she was gone, Book knelt down before his bunk, looked at the cross, and prayed.

* * *

**Chapter One: The Three Hills Job**

"Doc, why are we havin' this discussion again?" Mal said loudly. "My boat, my rules. You don't like 'em, get the hell off, _dong ma_?"

"She's an eighteen-year-old girl," Simon said as the two walked down the gantry toward the waiting mule. "She is not some personal bodyguard or your in-house psychic."

Mal actually stopped. "Did you not see same said girl corpsify a whole gorram army of Reavers all by her lonesome? Did you not see same said girl save your sorry pee-goo? She does not need protecting. Way I see it, if anyone needs protecting, it's us from her." He leaned forward until his nose brushed Simon's. "So, we really gonna have this conversation, again?"

"It's okay, Simon," River said as she drifted past the two men barefoot. "I won't get shot today." She hitched a thumb at Mal. "He will. In the shoulder."

From the mule, Zoe perked up and said, "You're going to get shot today, Sir?"

"Seems so," Mal said, all thought of the doctor falling from his brain. "_Zhoa mei mei_, how am I going to be shot?"

River climbed into the mule and slipped on a pair of Jayne's old, oversized goggles as the mercenary also climbed in. The look of exasperation she gave him made her look like a mother scolding a slow child. "With a gun, silly."

"Will we make any money?" Jayne said as he climbed in.

"Yes."

The merc shrugged and looked at Mal. "Sounds worth it to me. Let's go."

With a last look at River, Mal climbed into the Mule as Zoe kicked it in gear. As they flew out of the cargo hold, he turned and said, "Which shoulder?"

River leaned forward and poked his left shoulder. "'Least it's not my gun arm," Mal said.

The job was supposed to be a simple transport: a cryo-chest of cattle embryos to be shipped to a rancher on Santo. Plus a security man to ensure no one tampers with it. Because of the questionable nature of shipping agricultural products without proper permits, the seller was willing to pay a lot, since said permits cost even more than that. Geneered livestock capable of moving from world to world while remaining viable was a closely guarded commodity on the core worlds. This, as Mal explained, was why he was charging a lot in the first place.

However, as the mule hovered through the desolate, sparse vegetation that was as much plant life as the moon Three Hills could produce, Mal knew right off that something was not right. The instructions Badger sent to them via Wave said very clearly that there would be no ship. Only a man, a big cryo-tank, and nothing else.

Technically speaking, there wasn't a ship there. What they saw were the remains of a ship. Must have been a sleek one, too, with a smooth white hull from what they could see of the fuselage. The only piece of the ship they could clearly make out was what looked like the fin of a giant white whale turned on its back. The wing or fin rose a good twenty feet into the air from the blackened remains.

"Ho, there!" Mal called.

"We should go," River said.

"You said there's money to be made!" Jayne said.

"This doesn't feel right, Sir," Zoe said, ignoring the large mercenary. "We should go."

Mal stood to examine the wreckage and then turned to look down at River. "If we go, will I still get shot?"

She peered up at him through her goggles. "Three," she said.

"What?"

"Two."

"Sir!" Zoe said in warning.

"One."

Mal jerked back to his left and tumbled out of the mule, followed a split second later by the distant report of a gun echoing across the small valley where the unknown ship had crashed.

Jayne and Zoe responded instantly, jumping from the mule to a low hillock topped by thin shrugs, where they immediately pointed their weapons to look for a target. Jayne had Vera up and was looking through the scope. "I count two shooters," he said. He pulled the trigger. "Make it one."

"There's two more behind the ship," River said as she casually climbed down from the Mule.

The captain was on the ground cradling his left shoulder and glaring up at her. "_Tai-kong suo-yo duh shing-chiouh doh sai-jin wuh duh pee-goo_!" he shouted. "Would it have been too much to say, 'Get down'?"

River shrugged and squatted beside him just as the report of the gun reached them and a bullet whizzed over her head to strike the dry, dusty ground a few feet away. "If you got down, it would have hit Zoe in the head," she said.

"Huh."

"Hold it right there!" a gruff male voice said. Mal looked around River at two large men bearing down on them with shotguns.

Zoe turned to face them and saw immediately they had the drop both on her and her captain. "Should I shoot them, Sir?" she called.

"She shoots, you die first," the larger of the men said to Mal.

"Shoot 'em!" Jayne called over his shoulder.

"We seem to be having a failure to communicate," Mal drawled as he looked up at the larger man from the ground. "We got no fight with you. We're here to do a job. Far as I can see, job's gone. Let us be about our way and it's yours."

"This ship's already ours," the larger man said. The smaller one simply stared at River, noting the way her loose gown pulled up her calf and back down over the peak of her knee to show the skin of her lower thigh.

"Not a point I care to argue," Mal said. "Don't care what you're about, just care 'bout getting me and mine home."

The larger gunman took a step closer, and it was the last mistake he ever made.

When River moved, it didn't look as if she were actually moving that fast and yet no one could respond fast enough to save themselves when she attacked. She flashed out a hand and grasped the barrel of the large man's shotgun. She pushed it toward the smaller man even as she swung her leg about and swept the first man's feet from underneath him.

The fall jerked his finger and he pulled the trigger. The smaller man turned into a blur of red mist as he fell backward. Jayne, who never actually turned around since he figured Zoe was handling it, kept his eye to the scope as the last sniper out in the fields stood up to see what was happening. He pulled the trigger, and the man when down.

The large gunman, meanwhile, was cursing angrily and trying to bring the shotgun to bear on a target until River spun around almost horizontal to the ground and slammed her elbow into his nose.

The snap of broken bone and cartilage was audible throughout the clearing. When River stood, the large man did not. He stared unblinking into the pale blue sky as blood gushed across his face. "Quiet now," she whispered as she stared down at him. "All quiet."

Zoe stepped over and helped Mal to his feet as they stared at River.

"_Zhou mei mei_, you right?"

"I'm left," she whispered as she continued to stare down at the man she killed. One of two. One with a gun. One with her own limbs. "I'm left. Never right."

"Sounds normal to me," Jayne said. "Ruttin' moon brain." It should have been an insult, except from Jayne, it came almost as admiration. One professional killer to another.

River dropped to her knees and felt moisture running down her cheeks.

"What'd I say?" Jayne said when Zoe snarled at him and went to try and comfort her.

Mal, realizing there was nothing he could do, stepped past the two women and stared at the ship. Jayne stepped up beside him. "Ever see a ship like that, Mal?" Jayne asked.

"No, he hasn't," River said. She wiped her nose and took a deep breath.

"_Mei mei_, would you let me talk?" Mal said. He studied the ship for a long moment, noting the unfamiliar lines and the odd fin. "No. I haven't."

"It safe, River?" Zoe asked.

"Safe?" She stared at Zoe like an animal caught in the headlights of the mule. "Never. But no one's out there. No more shooting." She turned and stared at the ship. "Reavers."

Just then Mal also saw the black harpoon sticking from the back of the fuselage. "Looks like," he said darkly. He walked forward with Jayne shadowing him to explore the wreckage.

The ship appeared to have been just under twenty yards long. The entire front end of the ship was gone, as was the entire starboard side. As Mal walked around the underbelly and raised port fin, he was able to see the contents of the strange ship spilled onto the ground. This was what the men must have been digging through when they drove up.

"That look like a cryo-tank to you?"

Jayne stared. "Guess so," he said, having no idea what a cryo-tank looked like.

Mal stepped up to the large, sealed case. It was almost four feet across, three wide, and three feet thick. He tried and confirmed it was just as heavy as it looked.

Nearby the case was the body of a man wearing an odd cut of clothes. He appeared to be in his fifties, with thinning hair. His face was smashed beyond recognition. His hands were covered in thin blue gloves.

Zoe walked around to join them. "Well?"

"Payment was supposed to be half at pick-up, half on delivery."

A large bag of platinum coins fell at his feet. He spun about, then cursed and grabbed his bleeding shoulder as River stepped around the ship. "That was our money," she said airily. "The quiet man had it."

She walked past them, her bare feet picking a debris-free path until she stood next to the large tank. She rested a hand on it, closed her eyes, and swayed. "Lost. Lost. Two by two, hands of blue. Only one, where is two?"

"Better get her away from there," Zoe suggested. "We all know she's a might strange comes to cows."

"He doesn't know what he is," River said. She continued to stare at the tank with wide, startled eyes. "Doesn't know who."

"Don't care, neither," Mal said. "Zoe, how 'bout you bring the mule around. We'll see if we can't get this _fei-oo_ loaded up."


	2. Bugswatter and Baby Cows

**munchinmonster**--Thank you. Trust me, it'll come in a big way. However, the story is written almost completely from the Firefly perspective, so a lot of it remains a mystery for them.

**Kayla Tetavor**--Thank you. I appreciate the kind words!

**Fohkukohgeki**--Thank you.

**grayangle**--Thank you, and as you asked, here's some more ;)

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Two: Bug Swatter; Baby Cows**

He was an Operative of Parliament.

Once upon a time he was a man. He had a name. He had a family. A little girl, a wife he adored more than his own life. They left Beaumond for a new life on the Rim. Then the war came, and those loyalists like himself who had the misfortune to live in the Independence Territories suffered for their allegiances. The Browncoats came for him when he allowed the Alliance to use his farmstead as a staging area.

The missed him, but they managed to kill his wife. And his little girl.

Now the Operative had no name. He was not a man. He was a shadow. He was a warning to those who would threaten the peace he once wanted for those he loved. He was death.

Those who had reason to call on him called him Walsingham, after an historical figure from Earth-that-was who committed acts of a monstrous nature in order to defend a glorious kingdom.

He stood now on the barren plains of Three Hills, looking over the shattered remnants of an unidentified ship. His men finished their sweeps and reported four dead locals, plus a Blue Sun contractor in the wreck.

"There is no sign of the cryo-tank or the second contractor," the Special Forces lieutenant said. The Operative had his pick of Alliance personnel, and the only ones worth their weight were the Special Forces units. His predecessor taught him that lesson just three weeks ago after losing almost eight thousand men and three Alliance battle cruisers and several support ships to kill a force of only a few thousand Reavers.

Walsingham nodded and stepped gingerly among the crash, scanning everything closely. That was when he saw it. He knelt down and stared intently at the sand between two clumps of charred weeds. It was perhaps six inches long, with just the hint of a heel, but a clearly delineated depression of the ball of a light woman's foot and toes. It was the footprint of a petite woman who knew how to move in absolute silence, and who preferred to go barefoot.

"River Tam," he whispered. He stood and looked at the Lieutenant. "Send a discreet Wave direct to the Minister of Defense. The contractor is dead and _Serenity _has the cargo."

"Sir," the Lieutenant said. He did not salute, since military officers did not salute civilians. However, he snapped his heels with crisp discipline and turned to obey the order.

"It is time we swat that little bug," Walsingham said. He stood and joined the rest of his men in walking back to the transport. "Oh, and lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Once we are off the ground I want every trace of this site vaporized into glass. There can be no trace of this ship."

"Yes, sir."

"Bein' a bit rough there, aren't you Doc?"

"Am I?" Simon said coldly as he jerked the compress tightly around the cleaned bullet wound. "Sorry about that." He turned to wash his hands for the third time since he began to dig the bullet from the captain's shoulder. "So, she tells you people are going to die and you'll be shot, and you go anyway?"

"People have a might strong desire to eat," Mal said. "No money, no supplies, _Dong ma?_"

"So how much was that bullet in your shoulder worth?"

"Enough to put food in your belly, you ungrateful little…"

Just then Zoe wondered in. "Sir. All patched up?"

Mal glared at Simon and then shrugged, only to grimace. "_Juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan_," he grunted. "So we movin' yet?"

"River's got us off the rock. Heading toward the rendezvous, unless you say otherwise."

Mal shook his head. "Nah, that'll do. After, we head toward the Skyplex. Could all use some R&R, once we get all the money in our pockets. Maybe Jayne's mom'll send us some of them nice hats."

On the bed next to the captain's, Wash snorted. Zoe shrugged and flashed her recuperating husband a smile. "Ugly is a good look for you, Sir. I'm sure it would fit perfect."

Mal looked from one Washburn to the other. "I'm sensing a mutiny on my hands."

"Yes, better watch out, I'm bucking for action!" Wash threatened before he looked down. "Oh, what's this? A hole in my stomach. Good thing for you, Captain."

Mal grinned. "I reckon. River's an unnatural fine pilot and all, but she don't do justice to your dinosaurs. When you gonna be up'n running?"

"Another week minimum," Simon said from the other side of the captain. "Any other time, any other place, any other doctor, he'd be dead."

"See, I knew there's a reason I didn't throw you off again!" Mal said.

He and Zoe left the infirmary, but not before she flashed a last smile at her husband, who pretended to catch it in the air and sigh. When they were gone, he shouted, "I'm so bored!"

As the captain and Zoe left and started walking down the gantry toward the galley, they saw Jayne standing in front of them, leaning over and looking down into the cargo area. "What's this now?" Mal asked.

Jayne shushed the captain, then ignoring the glinty look, pointed down. "It's that moon-brained, _fong-luh_ witch woman down there. Look what's she's doing."

They all looked down at River, who sat on the floor of the cargo area next to the cryo-tank, talking to herself. Or rather, she was talking to the tank. "That girl really has something for cows, don't she?" Mal whispered.

Just then, Inara joined them. The Companion was dressed to immaculate perfection, as always. "What's going on?" she asked.

Mal shushed her, and ignoring her fiery look, pointed down. The four of them watched as River began to gesticulate wildly in response to something she said to the tank, and then stood up and slowly began to dance. The dance was at once alien and breathtakingly beautiful, but with an odd martial tone to it.

"If I didn't know better," Inara whispered, "I would say that is some type of _taolu_ or _kata_. I don't recognize the style, but it's definitely martial. See the way she's moving her hands? Like she's swinging a light-weight sword."

"We all saw what she done at Mr. Universe," Jayne said. "Mayhap she's having one o' dem hatchbacks or somethin'."

"You mean 'flashback'?" Zoe said.

"Maybe," Jayne said, suspicious they were making fun of him.

"It's beautiful," Inara whispered.

Suddenly River spun into a jump that took her into a flying cartwheel almost ten feet off the floor of the ship, and all four watchers stood straight and exchanged looks. Inara was the one to voice their thoughts: "That wasn't possible."

Kaylee wandered into the cargo bay to tune up the mule. She had her toolbox in one hand, an aging but still edible apple in the other, and a smear of oil across her forehead. She had that extra-happy bounce to her step she had whenever Simon came to see her in the night.

Then she saw River flying through the air in a wildly impossible kick that stopped her cold. River landed on her feet and came to a complete halt, staring intently at Kaylee. "An apple!" she said with girlish delight. She rushed to within inches of Kaylee, leaned in and put the apple, still in Kaylee's hands, against her cheek. "Home in a smell," she whispered.

"Uh, ya want it?" Kalyee asked, desperate to find something to say.

River made a face. "Don't like apples. Oranges better. Just the smell." She spun away, her arms outstretched and her face happy.

"That was some move you made," Kaylee noted.

"My friend showed it to me. He doesn't know he remembers, but he does."

"Your friend?"

River pointed to the cryo tank.

"Your friend's a baby cow?"

River laughed in delight. "A baby cow. Yes, that's it! Big, strong, baby cow!" She suddenly spun in a flying kick and brought both her bare feet squarely down on Jayne's head as the larger man walked up behind her.

The mercenary dropped like a rock to the stunned expressions of Mal, Zoe and Inara, who along with Jayne had come down to the floor level when Kaylee came in. "_Shiong-muh duh duang-ren_!" Mal hissed. "What is wrong with you, woman?"

River blinked. "He wanted to throw my friend out the airlock."

"I think she means the baby cows," Kaylee said helpfully from behind River.

Jayne picked himself up, glaring as he held his head with both hands. "I weren't gonna do squat!" he said. "Just thinkin' it is all."

"First off, we ain't throwin' nothing out the airlock we could sell for money!" Mal said. "Second, nobody beats up my merc but me!"

"That's right!" Jayne said. He did a double take. "What?"

River ignored them and backed up to the tank. "You can't sell him."

"It's a bunch of gorram cow babies!" Mal said.

"Embryos," Zoe corrected.

"Whatever!" Mal glared at her. "The job is to transport 'em. We do that, we get more money."

Just then Simon joined the fray. "What's going on?" he asked as he walked up behind Kaylee.

"River's been talking to the baby cows and beat Jayne up again," she said.

"The job was a trap," River said, ignoring her brother. "They picked this ship because of me. You deliver the tank, they take me, kill all of you. Badger knows. He's still laughing. Two by two, hands of blue." She cocked her head like a dog listing to a high-pitched whistle. "I don't think Badger likes you, Captain."

"Don't say."

"Then what's the use keepin' dem stupid baby cows fer then?" Jayne said.

"Embryos," Mal corrected.

"We could still sell them," Zoe pointed out.

"Touch him and you die."

The whole room fell silent at the utter death in River's voice. All hint of the little girl was gone. What stood before them was the killer of Reavers that saved their lives at Mr. Universe.

It was Inara who stepped forward. "River, you say 'him.' Who is he?"

"He's lost," the girl said, relaxing only slightly. "Doesn't know who he is. But he teaches me anyway. He's sad and lonely and lost and powerful and he doesn't belong here."

"You realize we're talking about a baby cow," Mal told the Companion.

She turned and glared. "Shush!" she said. "River, are you saying there is someone in the tank?"

"No one," she said. "He used to be someone. Now he's no one. No name. No memory. Lost, lonely. Sad."

She turned her back on them all and touched the tank. She began speaking again, but in an oddly familiar language. "That's new," Mal said. Then his eyes widened. "Ain't that that silly tongue they're shoving down kid's throats now-a-days?"

"It's called Corlingua," Inara said. "And you'd better learn it. In ten years it's going to be the official language of the Alliance. They started teaching it in schools twelve years ago."

"I remember," Mal said. "It's one of the articles in the Independence Declaration rejecting it. Question is why she's babbling in it at a tank of cold baby cows?"

Simon shook his head. "Mei mei, open the tank."

"You do that, we lose the cargo!" Mal said.

"You did it to me when I first came on board," Simon noted. "Remember what you found in my cryo tank?"

For the first time, the light of understanding shimmered in Mal's eyes and he gave a stiff nod. "Open it up."

River turned from Simon to the captain, and then back to the tank. Her fingers flew over the control pad as if she were a trained technician, and with a pop and a shower of cold vapor the lid of the tank unsealed. As it rose, everyone gathered closer around the tank to see.

They saw a very large, very well-muscled man with a mane of black hair curled up in fetal position, his eyes closed and his skin gray from the cold of the cryo stasis. He was also very, very naked.

Kaylee grinned and eyed the still figure appreciatively. "That ain't no baby cow, and no how!"

"Huh," the Captain said. "Don't see that every day."

"No, you really don't," Inara said, also sizing up the large man. She made a point of ignoring Mal's suddenly concerned expression.


	3. Naked Men

**sci-fi junkee**--Thank you, and yes, you would be right on all accounts.

**Jillie chan**--Yes, it could easily have been posted in the Firefly section. That's the problem, where to post. I chose Star Wars because, even though the story may be from a Firefly perspective, I personally operate on the SW side of things. I encountered the same situation with another fic of mine that could easily be in the Stargate or Roswell section, but is also in SW. Perhaps I used the word "hatch" incorrectly. I had it envisioned right, so it must have been lost in translation from brain to keyboard. If you find errors, though, let me know. This story wasn't Beta read, so I'm sure a few will leak in.

**munchinmonster**--A very safe bet. Thank you for reading!

**grayangle**--The Operative is operating under orders. Plots within plots and all that. And I'll help all I can by posting the next chapter. ;)

Thank you all for reading!

* * *

**Chapter Three: Naked Men**

Samhael Afolabi ran through the streets of Persephone with smooth, even breaths and strong legs that left his pursuers momentarily behind.

The slums of Eavestown Docks did not attract the type of people who concerned themselves with other people's business. Samhael could have a knife in his chest and three men with clubs after him, and no one would look twice.

He was not injured, however, and he was the hunter as much as the hunted. He was, after all, very good at both.

Samhael Afolabi was on his third life. His first life was unremarkable. He was a thief and drug addict, like many in the slums of Londinium. He stole to get the money to pay for the drugs that helped him forget about the hopeless, endless hole that was his life.

One day, when he was in his early teens, he tried to rob someone he should not have robbed. He remembered the sound his arms and legs made when they snapped. His would-be victim methodically broke his humerus, radius and ulna bones in both arms, then as he lay writhing on the ground in agony, proceeded to break both femurs, his fibulas and his tibias.

The man leaned over and grabbed the thoroughly incapacitated teen by the chin. "Does you're life mean anything?"

Samhael remembered sputtering out a plea for mercy, which made the man smile cruelly. "Mercy? No. There will be no mercy. I will destroy you so utterly you won't even remember your name."

From that day on, he became a creature of the Alliance, subjected to the most agonizing, intensive training in the galaxy. His speech was reworked, his features shifted through injury and reconstruction. He was trained on weapons of every description, and how to use anything else at hand as a weapon. He was shaped, over and over again, until he became an Operative.

His second life proceeded in accordance with the expectations of all those who created him. He did the bidding of key members of Parliament, and made sure that the society he served would flourish, even if there was no place for the likes of him in it. Until something shattered his faith.

It wasn't just what Malcolm Reynolds showed him and the rest of the Alliance what really happened at Miranda. What really broke his faith was when he returned to his duties afterward.

A digital chip awaited him in his office on Londinum. It was an unobtrusive speck the size of a fingernail. He placed it in his earpiece and a filtered voice simply said, "Wave band 9945.523."

He kept the chip in his earpiece as he used his terminal to enter the Cortex and realized that the wave band 8845.523 was a red-band frequency with such intense security that an attempt to infiltrate it would result in a power-surge destroying the terminal.

As if someone were monitoring his progress, the same filtered voice then begain speaking a long, unbroken list of symbols, letters and numbers.

Unthinkingly Afolabi began typing.

The red-band opened, and Afolabi found himself staring at a stream of condensed information in the newly formed alphabet that included images of things beyond anything he could have ever imagined, all under a Blue Sun wave band marker.

The data chip chirped at him through his ear. The voice returned, this time without filtration. "Now you begin to understand," the voice said. It was deep, cultured and oddly accented. It was the voice of the Minister of Defense himself. "I cannot help you directly. But you understand what the Alliance truly faces."

Afolabi didn't know if his hidden benefactor could hear him or not, but he nodded and said, "I understand now."

He felt heat and removed his earpiece as the chip within it began melting under a chemical reaction. He placed the ruined device on his desk and stared again at the information. Quickly, he closed down his connection and disconnected his terminal. Blue Sun contracts would know the access came from his office.

When his home exploded ten minutes later, Alliance soldiers found the then active Operative in the street with burns and a gun-shot wound to his leg. He wrote a long, detailed report on how two unidentified men managed to wound him and then overpower him in an attempt to access his secured Alliance terminal link.

Two days later, he turned in his resignation citing exhaustion and multiple recent injuries.

As he walked the streets of Londinum afterward and pondered the terrible secrets he now knew, he realized that Blue Sun operatives were still following him. In fact, they would follow him for the rest of his life. Still, he could not keep these secrets to himself.

For some reason, the only person he could think of to help him shoulder the burdens he now carried was Captain Mal Reynolds, the same man who helped end his second life.

And the only person he knew of who could find Mal Reynolds without a fleet of ships at his beck and call, was in Eavestown Docks. And so here he was, evading the hired soldiers of the Blue Sun Corporation seeking to claim his third life for their own, while at the same time hunting for a small time crime king named Badger.

He knew when he reached his destination when he suddenly found his path into one of the ramshackle huts blocked by a large man with a scar on his cheek and a mild pot belly.

"I wish to see Badger," the Samhael said.

"Says who?"

Samhael took a deep breath and calmed his lungs. "Says me," he said with a calm, cultured voice that often lulled his enemies into trusting him.

"Boss is busy," the thug said.

"That is unfortunate."

A minute later, as Badger was finishing up with a local businessman's outstanding loans, one of his guards stumbled into the office (an office with a dirty rug over a dirt floor and a beat-up plywood desk) and fell to the dirt gasping and clutching at his throat. Badger's other two guards reached for their guns as Afolabi stepped in.

"'Allo, what's all this, then?" Badger asked in a thick brogue.

"This gentleman indicated he would not allow me to speak to you," Samhael said. "I was forced to express to him the importance of my work."

"That you did. He gonna live?"

"Sadly not."

"Oh well." Badger stood and stepped to the front of his desk to study this newcomer. He made sure to stand between his guards a good two meters from the man. "So, you're here now. What can I do for you?"

"I want to know where to find Malcolm Reynolds."

"Gonna kill me if I don't tell you, huh?"

The former Operative smiled gently. "No. I'm going to kill you regardless. But I'll kill you painlessly if you cooperate."

The two guards pulled their guns. Samhael did not even bother with the katana he carried on his back. He disarmed and killed both men with his bare hands in the space it took Badger to run around his desk for his own gun. By the time he brought the supposed pre-ban "antique" revolver to bear, a hand with an iron grip caught his wrist and slammed the gun hand to the desk with sufficient strength to make Badger drop the weapon.

"As I was saying," Samhael said, "you are going to die regardless. But there are many ways to die. If you give me what I want, you will die quickly and with minimal pain. If you do not, you will rupture your vocal cords screaming in agony for many, many hours. Your choice. You were approached by a contractor from Blue Sun with a job for Malcolm Reynolds. Where was he supposed to go?"

Badger was not a brave man, nor was he particularly strong. But he had a street-level cunning that served him well. It was how he survived his arrival on the planet as a destitute teen, and how he rose to become a small crime-lord. He wanted to survive at all costs.

"I can't tell you," he said desperately, "but I can find out. My people won't talk to you, but they'll talk to me. Let me live and I'll help you. Bastard owes me money anyway."

Samhael stared down at Badger's face for the longest time. Finally, he said, "You're lying."

With a tug he spun the now howling Badger around and suddenly jabbed a finger into his back, just below the kidneys.

The pain was bad, but the paralysis that followed was terrifying.

Samhael stood and pushed the desk away. He slowly drew his sword, sure to let Badger see. "I can't stress the importance of my seeing Captain Reynolds. I can honestly say the very existence of the Alliance, and all the people living within it, depend on this. To that end, I will do whatever I have to do to find him."

Badger could not even nod. He grunted and watched with blood-shot eyes as Samhael placed the sharp blade of the sword to his ear. "This blade can shave a man's beard. This won't even hurt, until after."

Samhael pulled the blade sharply and both men watched as a severed ear fell on the worn wooden desk.

Badger's whole body vibrated like a thrummed guitar string with pain and he gasped.

"I do not particularly enjoy imparting pain," the Samhael said. "A quick swing and I could remove your head from your body. Your brain would die within fifteen seconds with minimal discomfort. Or, you can die a death of a thousand cuts, each perfectly measured to reduce blood loss and increase the odds of your prolonged survival."

He lifted Badger's left hand by his index finger and placed his sword against the base of the finger. "Wait," Badger whimpered. The nerve cluster punch wore off gradually, allowing the criminal to sink down to his knees. Samhael freed his hand and let him cover his bleeding ear.

"The pick up was on Three Hills," Badger said, weeping angrily. "The buyer wanted the drop off on Osiris."

"You knew it was a trap?"

"'Course I knew, I'm not some stinking bloody idiot."

"Indeed," Samhael said dryly.

"All right, I told you," Badger shouted, angry. "Not just get it over."

"Oh yes, I have to kill you." Samhael swung the blade with swift, controlled power. Badger opened his eyes and realized the edge of the blade had stopped just in contact with his neck. He felt a single drop of blood well at a tiny, stinging cut.

"You're dead," Samhael said.

"Son of a…"

The room exploded as men in unmarked black armor and automatic weapons poured in. They opened fired without hesitation. Badger's whole body began jerking spasmodically as dozens of rounds shredded his chest. Samhael fell flat to his stomach and then rolled toward the nearest soldier. He thrust his sword into the man's lower abdomen, under the armor. As the soldier fell, the former operative continued his roll under the man's boots and suddenly emerged with the dead soldier's assault rifle. He switched the weapon from semi to full and unleashed a barrage of armor-piercing blast-point rounds into the soldiers around him.

They returned fire, but the exchange was so quick that most did not even have opportunity to aim before they were hit.

Sudden silence fell over the compound. People knelt or squatted along the narrow streets of the slum, watching through the collapsed walls as Afolabi stood and discarded the weapon. "A waste," he said. He knelt down to the body of a soldier and wiped his sword clean with the dead man's pants leg, before sheathing it. Without looking back, he turned toward the dock yards to find transport off Persephone. Three Hills was undoubtedly long overdue. So he would have to seek the captain elsewhere. He had one more lead to try before he had to go to Osiris on his own.

As he started to leave the shattered building, a squad of Alliance soldiers came around a corner. They froze when they saw him. Afolabi stared right back. "What are your orders?" Afolabi barked.

The Alliance soldiers obviously recognized him. The corporal in charge said, "No interference."

Afolabi nodded. His patron in the Ministry was reaching out yet again. "Then obey those orders." With that, he fled the scene with no fear of Alliance pursuit. He would be pursued, of that he had no doubt, but not by the Alliance.

It took Simon, Jayne, and Mal working together to move the man from the cryo-tank to the infirmary. The entire time, Kaylee, River and Inara followed. "Come on, Cap'n," Kaylee complained at one point. "You're blockin the view!"

"Kaylee!" Simon said, shocked.

Kaylee shrugged. "Don't see things like that often," she said in defense of herself.

"He is very well endowed," Inara noted.

"Not that big," Jayne said.

"Penis envy," River said.

"Now wait one ruttin' gorram minute!" the mercenary started.

"Enough. No more talk about this man's penis!" Mal said.

Kaylee snickered. "Made you say it."

"If we can get our attention above his waistline," Simon said, "I'm more interested in his scars. Look at his stomach."

"I'm looking," Kaylee said as they finally reached the infirmary and placed him on the bed. "That I am!"

"What's this, now?" Wash said just as Zoe joined him. "A naked boy toy? Do we get naked girl toys too?"

"Honey," Zoe said. "Shut up."

"I just want things to be fair," Wash said plaintively.

Simon, ignoring Kaylee's moan of disappointment, tactfully covered the naked man's privates. "Okay, what I see here is a man who's suffered and recovered from severe trauma and burns to his chest and stomach, suffered a compound fracture in his right arm in the past, and has been shot and burned a number of other times."

"I see six foot five of man," Kaylee said.

"Would you please stop that?" Simon asked.

She walked around the table and gave him a lingering kiss. "Don't worry, it's shiny. I'm all looky-looky, no touchy-touchy." She turned back and flushed scarlet. "But the looky-looky's almost enough."

Mal huffed. "Kaylee, don't you have somethin' to fix in the engines?"

"Nope."

"Find something."

"Aw, Cap'n, you never let me have any fun!" With a pout, she glanced from Simon to Mal, then to the unconscious man, before she finally turned and left.

She was replaced a moment later by Book. "What's all the commotion about…oh, a new passenger," he noted. "And clothing-impaired, as well."

"This was River's baby cow," Mal said. "Turns out that tank wasn't carrying no fetuses."

"Embryos," River corrected absently.

"Whatever. Any idea who this man is?" Mal asked.

Book stepped up to the edge of the table and traced the odd, tattooed lines on his cheeks. Then he shook his head. "No idea." He looked up and saw River staring at him pointedly. "He looks like he's had a hard time of it, though."

Suddenly a large hand snaked out and grabbed Book by the throat. The Shepherd gasped and clawed at the hand. "Doc, get something in him!" Mal shouted. Jayne reached out and slammed the base of his hand down at the inside of the elbow joint to break the man's grip.

The man's eyes opened. They looked dark and wild. A large foot lashed out and sent Jayne flying into a cabinet across the infirmary. Simon returned from his medicine cabinet with a syringe.

The man spun around with terrifying speed and grabbed the doctor's wrist. Simon grimaced and the syringe fell into the stranger's other hand. He plunged it into Simon's neck without hesitation. Simon stepped away, blinked twice, and fell to the floor just as Kaylee rushed back in.

"Simon!" she screamed.

Mal drew his gun, which was just as quickly knocked away. He tried to throw a punch. The big man caught his fist and stared down at the captain. "This ain't gonna be fun," Mal predicted with a fair amount of accuracy.

The man pulled Mal forward by his hand, and then hit him three times in quick succession with the captain's own fist before letting go. Mal fell back, stunned by the strength of the blows.

Finally River stepped forward. The man spun, ready to defend himself, but paused when he saw her. She spoke something to him in Corlingua that Mal couldn't understand, and the man suddenly blinked and visible relaxed. She continued talking to him as she took his hand and guided him back to the table, where he voluntarily sat and accepted the towel she handed him for modesty.

By then Jayne picked himself up and reached for his knife, only to have River spin and kick it away. "What is wrong with you, moon-brained witch?" Jayne yelled.

"He'll kill you if you come any closer," she said. She looked around the room. "He could kill you all if you make him." She turned and studied him, her face somber. "Knives or guns won't stop him. He's lost, that's all."

"Not the only one," Mal muttered, holding his jaw.

"Well, that was exciting," Wash summed up from the other side of the room. "Do we get to see naked women fighting now?"


	4. With Friends Like These

**Cool-Aid**--Thank you for reading and the review. I'm glad you're enjoying it!

**munchinmonster**--Thank you. I cracked myself up writing it, so I'm glad I'm not the only one. And I completely agree with Wash having to be in it. This is my second version of this story. The first followed post-_Serenity_ canon and just wasn't the same without him. Thanks for the review!

* * *

**Chapter Four: With Friends Like These…**

The stranger, whom the crew had named Long John ("I mean, did you not see him?" Kaylee said of the appellation) sat in the galley staring at a protein bar while the rest of the crew stood around him, watching him stare.

He wore a pair of Jayne's slacks and T-shirts, which surprisingly fit. River sat near him at the table. Simon, who by then had mostly recovered from the tranquilizer, sat groggily a few chairs away with Kaylee's arms around his slumped shoulders. It was a mark of his state of mind that they touched at all in front of the others. He was still pretty shy in that regard.

"What's his name?" Mal said. He leaned with his arms across his chest against the galley bar.

"He doesn't know," River said without asking.

"Ask him, please," Mal said.

River turned, said something in Corlingua, then turned back to the captain. "He says he doesn't know."

"Where's he from?"

"He doesn't know."

"What does he know?"

"That Jayne didn't wash those clothes before he handed them over."

Jayne blushed. "How'd I know someone else'd be wearin' the gorram things!"

Inara moved to the captain's side. Long John watched her silently. Like River, Inara spoke the newly engineered language of Colingua, as did Simon and even Kaylee, who got a smattering of it during her final years of school.

"My name is Inara," she said. "Do you know why you were in that container?"

His voice was deep and deceptively smooth, like a sheath hiding a dagger as he spoke the Corlingua with an odd accent. "I don't know."

"Do you remember anything?"

"Two by two," he said.

"Hands of blue," River finished in Anglo.

Simon perked up a little, though he didn't try to escape Kaylee's protective arm. "River, do you think he's from the Academy?"

She looked not at Simon or John, but over to Book for the longest time. "I don't know," she said at last. "I never saw him there. But in the end, we didn't see each other at all."

"You mean the others there," Simon said.

River nodded and looked back at John, who was now carefully analyzing the entire room. "He's like me," she said.

"Moonbrained?" Jayne said with a snort. "Ain't that a ruttin' shame."

"A killer," River corrected.

The room fell quiet again. Simon started to talk, but River forestalled him by raising her hand. Finally, the man's eyes made their way back to her, and the two sat staring at each other so intensely even Inara's cheeks colored. "Should we leave the room?" she finally asked, half in jest.

River turned and grinned suddenly. Her whole face came alight as it sometimes did, making her startlingly beautiful. "Yes, please. I'm going to have his baby."

Mal choked on spit and turned away from everyone, coughing violently.

"Not today, child," Book said quickly for the distraught captain. "Besides, he's a very large man and obviously a good deal older. I think a relationship like that might not be advisable."

River looked at John, who merely studied those around him. "He'd be gentle when he had to," she said softly.

Mal, finally recovered, said, "He'll bunk in Jayne's cabin for now. River, you'd better stay in yours. This ship ain't no…" he stopped and glanced guiltily at Inara. "You ain't gonna have nobody's baby on this ship."

"Not on this ship, no," River said.

* * *

Around a barren moon circling a planet undergoing the first vestiges of terraforming orbited the Yutani Skyplex, one of the last bastions of open greed, thievery and commerce in the human 'verse. Shaped like a giant mushroom with a pointed stem, the orbital station provided docking, commerce and supplying opportunities to free traders all across space.

Mal at once loved and hated the place. He loved it for the freedom it represented. The Alliance had no presence to speak of on the station. It recognized that such hubs of commerce were essential to the survival of the rim planets.

He hated it because the merchants on the Skyplex were just as likely to shoot a man as to trade with him. Their might have been honor among thieves, but there was none among merchants.

"_Serenity_, we have you on approach vector," the Skyplex controller said. "Securing nav link for automated docking."

"Understood," Mal said into the mic. He turned to River, who sat piloting with her hands but watching the empty moon above them with her eyes. "_Mei mei_, you here?"

She turned her doleful eyes on him. "Where is here?"

"Are you going to dock my boat, or ram it through the gorram station?" he asked, a little sharply.

With a shrug, she flipped on the nav link and allowed the skyplex controller to take the ship in. The two settled in and watched as the space station grew larger. "You really have a liking for this new feller," Mal said. "Don't know his name. Don't know where he's from or what he's about. And you go off talkin' about babies."

"He'll remember who he is when he needs to," she said. She stiffened a little. "Someone's waiting for us in there."

Mal sat up and stared through the ports as if he could somehow see through the thick surface of the station as River seemingly could. "Friend or foe?"

She turned and smiled at him. "Yes." Then she hopped up and skipped down the steps.

"_Shu ma nyaow_," the captain muttered under his breath. He grabbed the mic and announced to the rest of the ship that docking was eminent.

Although the Skyplex did provide complete atmospheric docking bays, Mal couldn't afford those fees. The docking arm that stretched out and hooked up with their fore airlock hatch was sufficient.

The entire crew was gathered at the dock, eager to get off the ship. There was, however, the question of what to do with Long John. After the week-long trip from Three Hills, they still knew nothing of John save that he woke early, slept little, and ate a lot. He did whatever chores he was asked to do, and then just sat around watching everyone else with those dark eyes. He made Mal distinctly uncomfortable.

John stood with the others now simply for lack of anywhere else to be. As had been the case all week, River stood by his side and watched everyone as if they were all going to turn at a moment's notice and attack.

For his part, Mal found a couple of reasons not to want River to be Long John's chaperone: one, her stated and obvious desire to make babies with the man; and two, she was just as crazy and lost as he probably was. Together they would either get themselves and the rest of the crew killed, or themselves kill the whole station by accident.

As if reading his mind, Book stepped forward. "Mal, how 'bout I stay with River and our new guest? As long as they don't move too fast I should be fine."

Mal didn't bother hiding his relief. "Much obliged, Shepherd. That'll be mighty fine. Kaylee, my boat all tied up?"

"Shiny, Cap'n," Kaylee said brightly. She grabbed Simon's arm. "Gonna buy me strawberries?"

"What do I get if I do?" he asked.

"Any thing you…"

"Would you two stop that?" Jayne shouted. "Making 'dem gorram googly-eyes makes my stomach hurt." He stomped past the doctor and mechanic just as the airlock opened.

The Operative stood just outside in the docking arm, his sword strapped across his back.

"_Ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng_," Mal shouted as he pulled his pistol. Zoe had her carbine up in a split second, and Jayne had two pistols trained on the Operative almost as fast.

"Captain," the Operative said calmly, his hands behind his back still. "It is good to see you well."

"Can't say the same," Mal said darkly. "I thought we had an agreement."

"Indeed we did, I let you go. And I have not pursued you since."

"Nah, I meant the part where I see you again, I kill you."

The Operative held his hands out to either side. "Shoot if you must. I didn't come to you as an Operative of Parliament. I have resigned from service. My name is Samhael Afolabi, and I am here to ask for your help. And possibly to help you as well."

"You'll understand if I think you're lying out your _pee-goo_," Mal said.

"He's not," River chimed. She stepped past them all until she stood before the former Operative. "You've seen things you weren't supposed to see," she said to him.

"So have you, my extraordinary little River," Samhael said. He looked up at the man at the rear, towering over the others. "And perhaps even more." To Mal he said: "There is a restaurant on the promenade where we can speak in peace, Captain. I offer you and your crew a free meal in return for an hour of your time. After that, should you choose it, I will leave and bother you no more."

There was no question of turning down food. Even if Mal had said no, he would have faced a full mutiny.

When they arrived the restaurant proved to be the closest thing to classy the Skyplex had. It had plexiwood tables that looked real enough, and softly padded benches in dimly lit corners. The conversations were muted not just by gentility, but by white noise emitter cones around each table in case gentility was not enough.

It was the perfect place for criminals and shady dealing in general. "I like it," Jayne said.

The whole group of them were led by a waiter to a separate room just able to fit twelve people. Even Wash was able to join them, although Zoe had to push him in a wheelchair. "Oh boy," Wash said as she moved a chair and positioned him at the table. "I'm going to have a steak and wine and potatoes and green beans and…"

"You're going to have soup, a roll and water," Zoe said.

"…and soup, and a roll, and water. Oh boy!" Wash finished without missing a beat.

The menu was a real menu, with real food items listed that those on the ship had not eaten in months to years. While something as simple as stir-fried chicken and rice sounded modest, a million miles from the nearest chicken such a menu item became much more precious.

They ordered quickly. Kaylee, of course, ordered a bowl of strawberries and cream in addition to her hamburger. Only when the waiter left did Mal reached down to his holster, remove his weapon, and place it on the table.

"Now, the minutes are ticking by. Why don't we start talkin' bout why I shouldn't just kill you now?"

"He ain't paid for the grub yet, is why," Jayne pointed out.

"There is that," Samhael agreed with a smile. "Captain, when you found out about Miranda, what was your first impulse?"

"To kill all the bastards done that to them folks," Mal said. "Then, 'cause I didn't have that many bullets, I reckoned it was just as good to tell folks what the Alliance was about."

Samhael leaned forward. "What if I told you, Captain, that Miranda was just the tip of the iceberg. That there were things happening in the Alliance so terrifying that society as we know it would collapse if the people were to find out?"

"I'd wanna know what you're smokin'," Jayne said. "And where to buy some."

Afolabi ignored the mercenary. "Captain, did you know that since the human race colonized this system, we have officially not launched a single deep space probe? Nothing has left the solar system in hundreds of years."

"Who cares?" Jayne said. "Ain't nothin' out there to look at no-how. Just a bunch of black and Reavers."

Simon, however, was interested. "You mean not a single probe or exploration craft?"

"Officially, no. Every official record shows there has never been a government or privately sponsored probe. There are corporations that could launch probes as surely as the Alliance could. Blue Sun has an entire fleet of ships, but not even the private sector has attempted to send out a probe."

"We're grateful for the food and all," Mal said, "but I'd be obliged if you'd just make your point."

Samhael leaned forward. "The records were altered. All of them. Hundreds of launches and research studies were erased from history. In some cases, so were the researchers. Forces within and without the Alliance tried to hide the fact that it has been reaching out for centuries to explore the rest of the galaxy."

"Why is that?" Simon demanded.

"They found something," River said softly.

From the interior of the restaurant, a waiter tripped and sent a tray of glasses crashing to the floor. Jayne almost jumped out of his seat. "Could Spooky there not do any talking?" Jayne said, pointing at River. "Gorram moon-brain even makes dinner scary."

"It's scarier than you know," Samhael continued. He locked Jayne in a long, nearly painful stare. "Because she's right. They did find something. Or more accurately, something found us."

Book placed his elbows on the table and studied the former operative. "Tell me, Mr. Operative, how do you know this?"

"Afolabi, please," the former Operative said. "I was contacted by a source placed highly within the Alliance. He is slowly swaying members of Parliament to his view, but they have encountered difficulty. With his help I broke into restricted wave bands," he said.

"So put this all down in dummy captain talk," Mal said. "What's going on?"

"Aliens."

"_Fei hua_!" Mal said. "Ain't no such things out in the black. Just us."

"I didn't say they were out in the black," Samhael said. "They are here in the System. Everywhere. Two by two they come, in teams. They are luring, or in some cases, abducting children from all the Core Worlds. Like River, there. Maybe even like your large silent friend beside her. The Alliance not only knows, but key members of Parliament have even been actively cooperating with them for many years. What I learned, Captain…" he stopped speaking for a moment, lost in his thoughts.

He continued in softer tone of voice. "I learned that Blue Sun is more than just a corporation. They were the driving force behind Miranda, but I don't believe they were trying to pacify the population. I almost wonder if they weren't actually trying to create Reavers intentionally. Or something else." His eyes fell to River.

Mal pushed himself to his feet abruptly. "I ain't got time for this," he muttered.

"Aww, Captain!" Kaylee said. "I ain't got my strawberries yet!"

"I can prove every word, Captain," Samhael said urgently as he too stood. "All the proof—all the answers—are in one place. On Osiris."

"Where we were supposed to make our drop," Zoe noted quietly.

Mal looked from her back to Afolabi. "Why Osiris? Why not Londinum or Sihnon?"

Across the table, River and Simon were sharing a long gaze. Finally, the doctor spoke. "That's where the Academy is, Captain. Where they took River."

"And made her into something no one in our society has ever seen before," Samhael said. "How do you think they did that, Doctor Tam?"

"You're telling me I could find out at the Academy?" Simon said.

"That is exactly what I'm telling you."

Simon nodded, reached across Kaylee and took River's hand. Beside her, John watched in silence. Mal saw the look on Simon's face. "Oh no," he muttered. "Ain't no way. Last time you hired us for a job dang-near got us all killed."

"I still have a sizable sum of money on Osiris," Simon said.

"When do we go?" Jayne said, looking from the doctor to the captain.

"Not before I get my strawberries!" Kaylee announced.

The waiter was just bringing the first tray of food when several things happened at once.

First, River screamed and fell from her chair to the floor beside John. Second, the whole station rocked so violently the tray and the waiter went crashing into Jayne's face and chest. With an angry grunt Jayne pushed the waiter to the floor and then wiped strawberries and cream from his eyes.

Third, and perhaps the most disturbing, Kaylee cried "Wait!" to Jayne. Ignoring River's frantic cries and the station-quake around them, she ran to Jayne, took a finger and wiped a swatch of strawberries and cream from the mercenary's cheek and sucked it longingly from her finger.

"Kaylee!" Simon said, aghast.

"I can put it in other places too!" Jayne said with an eager grin.

"That hurts my brain," Wash said.

"Reavers!" River finally yelled.

"Figures," Mal muttered. He picked his gun up and looked hard at Afolabi. "I swear, if this is a trap, you and me are gonna finish what we started on Mr. Universe."

"I understand," Afolabi said. He did not sound particularly frightened at the prospect.

Simon had rushed to River's side, but by then she was already sitting up. Outside of the restaurant, they could hear screams made distant and muted by the white noise cones. "I reckon we best be on our way," Mal said.

"We have company, sir," Zoe noted.

She pointed at the entrance as the whole restaurant exploded into chaos. A band of five Reavers came rushing in, howling like animals. All five were horribly disfigured through self-mutilation and wore a motley assortment of rags and human skins taken from their last victims.

Several of the patrons of the restaurant were armed and attempted to defend themselves while others screamed and ran. The defenders fell as the Reavers tackled them with animalistic brutality. No, Mal realized, they were worse than animals. Animals hunted for survival. The Reavers hunted and killed for the pleasure of causing others pain.

Mal kept his revolver ready as Zoe pulled her carbine and Jayne pulled two very large handguns. "Stay behind us," he said. "If this is just one ship, we're gonna make it. If it's a whole gorram army, well, it'll be an interesting walk."

The captain started forward with Zoe and Jayne flanking him while the others followed. The Reavers in the restaurant looked up from their latest kills. The first growled and rushed forward, only to catch one of Mal's bullet's squarely between the eyes. The other four also rushed forward. Mal shot a second, Jayne killed two in quick order, and Zoe managed to shoot one through the neck only to have the shot catch the last one in the face. It staggered back, and Jayne finished it off.

"Thank you, Jayne," Zoe said curtly.

"Yes, ma'am," he said with a big grin. Mal knew the mercenary was in his element—few were as good at killing those needed killing as Jayne Cobb.

When they left the restaurant they found that the main market of the Skyplex a battleground. Merchants and mercenaries alike engaged in a pitched battle with the invading Reavers. What was most disturbing, though, was that the Reavers were fighting back.

"Are they using guns?" Zoe asked, clearly stunned. "Reavers don't favor guns all that much. They like to catch their victims alive."

"That just ain't right," Jayne said.

"What about Reavers are right?" Mal asked. "Let's just be on our way."

He led them along the wall away from the battle. The Reavers all seemed to be coming from the starboard side and _Serenity_ just happened to be docked portside.

A few Reavers broke through the hastily assembled barricades and rushed a group of defenders. The individual Reavers seemed to ignore anything short of a head-shot; they ran on so much adrenaline they did not feel the pain even from otherwise fatal shots. The stricken defenders in each case screamed before their fellows put them out of their misery and finished off the attacker too.

Suddenly all firing stopped. With the cessation of gunfire they could hear the station alarm ringing. Mal stopped in his tracks and looked back. The Reavers were still there, standing oddly silent. In their midst was the largest Reaver Mal had ever seen. The creature stood a full head taller than anyone around and was clad in a strange collection of black leather. Its face was as horribly mutated as the rest, but it stood straight and proud and at that very moment was pointing across the market way at…Mal.

No, Mal realized. It was pointing at John. And it was speaking. A harsh, guttural, spitting language unlike anything Mal had heard before.

As it spoke, the other Reavers screamed their approval, and with a suddenness that caught the station defenders off guard, the whole Reaver force surged forward through the barricades. The mercenaries and merchants opened fire, but the Reavers ignored them.

They were coming straight at Mal and the rest of the _Serenity_ crew.

"Sir," Zoe said.

"Yup." Mal looked back at the rest of them and said, "Run!"


	5. Who Needs Reavers?

**Chapter Five: …Who Needs Reavers?**

Once upon a time, Malcolm Reynolds discussed Reavers with an Alliance officer. "Reavers ain't men. Or they forgot how to be," he said to the disbelieving Alliance man. "They're just nothing. They got out to the edge of the galaxy, to that place of nothing, and that's what they became."

It was a poetic view of the monsters that stepped into the role of boogeymen to most of the Alliance. But Mal later found out it was wrong. The Reavers weren't nothing. They were victims of the Alliance.

The drug called the "Pax", also known as G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate, killed twenty nine million, nine hundred and seventy thousand people on the planet Miranda. But the remaining thirty thousand it turned into monsters, stripping them of all vestiges of restraint or civilization until they became the boodeymen everyone knew and loved today.

After Miranda, Mal honestly thought the Reavers were wiped out. A few hundred made it down to the surface, but the Alliance fleet over Mr. Universe was heavily armed, and Mal's trick to lure the Reavers to the Alliance as a distraction worked very well. When _Serenity_ finally blasted off from the planet, the only sign they saw of the Reaver fleet was shrapnel.

However, just in the past three weeks, the Cortex teemed with reports of additional Reaver sightings and an increase in the number of attacks. This was, however, the first time Mal knew of that Reavers had attacked a Skyplex.

It was also the first time they seemed to be after a particular person or group.

"I don't know what you did to them, Mal," Inara said as they ran through the frenzied, frightened crowds with the horde of Reavers just a few yards behind, "but you might want to apologize."

Zoe turned Wash's wheelchair as she tried to swerve to avoid a woman and sent her husband sprawling to the floor. Without missing a step, Long John reached down and lifted the man in his arms, allowing all of them to move faster.

"Honey, I love this man," Wash called over his shoulder. "I'm glad he's dressed though."

"I'm not!" Kaylee called. Then she screamed and brought the whole crew to a stop as they rounded the corner to the docking hatch.

A group of ten reavers stood waiting for them. As soon as Mal and the rest came into view, the ten creatures howled like animals and charged forward.

Mal, Jayne and Zoe opened fire, but the wall of Reavers just rushed on unheeding, save for one that took a bullet in the head.

Fabric brushed by Mal before the first Reaver reached him, and once again he found himself staring in awe as the tiny form of River Tam took on nine nightmares by herself. The Reavers seemed to forget all about the rest of the crew as they concentrated on River.

Then John stepped into the fray. Without speaking, the larger man handed Wash to Jayne and stepped forward. He grabbed one of the Reavers from the back of his neck and then pushed the man-thing into the deck plating so hard the creature's neck snapped.

Some of the other Reavers heard and saw what happened and spun about to attack. John spun into a flying kick that threw three Reavers back to the flooring. He then blurred into action even faster than River, and in seconds they had all of the creatures on the ground. Behind them, the screams and gunfire from the Skyplex patrons told them the rest of the Reavers were almost on them.

"Let's get moving!" Mal called.

They scrambled aboard the ship and sealed the hatch. Almost as soon as they did so, bloody, mutilated faces crashed against the small port window of the hatch door and they heard the sound of bullets against the thick hull of the station's airlock hatch.

River was already flying up the stairs faster than anyone could have followed, and in moments the ship's engines roared to life. The rest of the group followed up to the command deck to find River in the pilot's seat, her hands flying over the controls. Outside the window, they saw an old G-1 _Galaxy_ transport covered in spikes, red paint and mummified bodies not just docked with the Skyplex hull, but actually crashed through it.

Jayne arrived shortly after Mal and Zoe and deposited Wash in the co-pilot's seat. "I don't like Reavers," Wash said with wild eyes. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Reavers are bad."

"Any more of 'em out there?" Mal asked.

"Doesn't look it," Wash said.

"No more," River said. "They wanted something. Us. That's all."

"It'll take 'em a bit to get loose from the Skyplex," Zoe pointed out.

"Then let's use the time and be somewhere else," Mal said.

"Where to, Captain?" River asked.

Mal looked down and saw her staring up at him with those large, sad puppy-dog eyes of hers. He looked over his shoulder where Simon stood next to Book and Inara. Afolabi stood calmly in their midst, watching the captain. Mal didn't even remember the Former operative joining them and considered saying something about it, such as "Get off my ship" or some such.

Then Mal looked back toward the Skyplex as River continued to back the ship up, before with a quick reverse pulse of the portside thruster she spun the ship around and brought up the gravity drive. "_Tian xiz shou you de ren dou gai si_," Mal muttered under his breath.

"Mal?" Inara said, blushing at the vehemence in the curse.

"Osiris," the captain said finally. "We're going to Osiris." He spun to Simon. "And you are going to owe me a lot of coin." Then he stomped angrily off the command deck.

Osirus was a Core World. The closest comparison between a Core World and a Rim world would be akin to the comparison between a hamlet of a hundred and a post-industrial city of millions. The differences went beyond mere numbers and became a matter of culture.

Core Worlds were rich. They were the founding members of the Anglo-Sino Alliance and supplied both the troopers and supplies that destroyed the Resistance. The kind of people who lived on Osiris killed people like Mal for four years during the Unification War. Mal did not particularly like those people.

The fact Simon and River were those people did not sway the captain's opinion in this regard. In fact, at times, it predisposed him to be even more biased than he would otherwise be.

As a consequence of this unhappy history, people like Mal, who survived off the Cortex, had difficulty making their way in the Core Worlds. This was even more so since the half-million credit bounty that was placed on the _Serenity_ following the whole Miranda affair.

Samhael told them all on Mr. Universe that the main reason for the pursuit of River had been to silence her about Miranda and how the Alliance was ultimately responsible for creating the Reavers. But even following the public outcry regarding the events of Miranda, the arrest warrants lingered and the bounty remained. Where there was a bounty, there were a horde of bounty hunters willing to seek it.

Hence _Serenity's_ false transponder announcing it was the _Alliance Ganymede_.

Mal sat in the co-pilot's seat while Wash, who was thrilled to be out of the infirmary and back to work, gently landed the ship on a small pad north of Novathebes on a cloudy winter day that saw a thin layer of snow covering much of the still-open countryside. No snow fell in the cities because of the urban heat island over the city itself. The effect of the urban thermal updraft was visible against the light snowfall as a rounded, streaking curtain in the distance, where the snow melted into rain on the way down to the city itself.

"Shiny," Mal said of the landing. "Glad to have you back."

"I am a leaf on the wind no longer," Wash said. "Now I am a hundred and forty-one ton cargo ship with really big jets."

Mal patted his shoulders. "Just keep telling yourself that." He stepped down from the fright deck and saw the doctor approaching him. "Well?"

"I got a message through to her. I bounced the wave like you said, so they shouldn't be able to trace it," Simon said. He turned and walked with Mal toward the stairs leading down into the cargo area. Others were already gathering as the ship's engines whined down.

Samhael Afolabi stood on the first landing of the stairs, waiting. "After you obtain your funds, Doctor Tam, have you given thought about how to get into the Academy?"

Simon nodded. "A little. I understand why you can't come. But you could help me get the supplies I'll need."

"And so I shall," Afolabi promised.

When they were all gathered together, Mal and the others stared at the doctor until he got the message. "Okay, first order of business I guess is money," Simon said, finally getting the hint. "I need to get to my accounts."

Jayne stared. "How?"

"I liquidated all my assets into hard currency before I rescued River," Simon explained, again. "Now I've got to figure out a way to pick it up from the bank."

"And seeing as how you're the second most wanted person in the whole 'verse and all," Mal finished, "that might present us a problem."

"Exactly."

Jayne blinked. "So, do we get to shoot somebody?"

Zoe sighed. "Jayne, go to your room, please. You're making my head hurt."

"I'm jus' sayin', we ain't got to shoot nobody in a while save 'dem Reavers, is all. Vera's starting to feel, well, like I don't love her no more."

"I'm just saying go to your room, you make my head hurt," Zoe said again

Jayne grumbled but remained where he was.

"I've sent a wave to our mother," Simon said, glancing at River. "I think she'll be willing to help. Under Alliance law, parents have the right to liquidate the funds of unmarried children who are missing, declared dead, or bound by law. I'm wanted by the law and I've been missing over a year now, so she shouldn't have trouble."

"You trust her?" Mal asked.

"She's my mother," Simon said.

"I don't reckon that's an answer," the captain said.

"I trust her," Simon said a little hotly.

"So, how much money we talking about again?" Jayne asked.

"One point four-seven-five million platinum or three hundred sixty eight thousand Alliance credits converted," River said from Long John's side.

Mal whistled and turned to Simon. "We need to rethink your lease agreement."

Simon didn't laugh; Mal wasn't joking.

"All right people, this is how it's gonna be," Mal said, once Simon was done. "Zoe, you and Jayne on provisions. Kaylee, you want that compression coil? Get it. Get whatever you need to keep this boat working for the next year. You can spend whatever's in the spending box. I'm with the Wonder Twins. Book, I'd be obliged if you stayed with Long John and our friend Sam here."

"Of course," Book said.

"Wash'll stay where he is," Mal continued. "No point in running a healing man over the 'verse if no need. We meet back here in five hours, _dong ma_?"

He opened the main cargo door and the parties started on their way.

Zoe started out first. "Come on, Jayne. Let's go get some food."

"I can handle food," Jayne said with a happy smile. "Wouldn't mind a little girl action neither."

"I can give you girl action," Zoe said as they set off down the street. "But you wouldn't like it."

Mal stood watching his crew split, his face somber.

Half an hour late, Mal, River and Simon bypassed the normal tram system and took a personal taxi away from the city. It was not, however, the type of taxi Mal would ordinarily have ordered.

He peered out the window of the sky car and then to the automated piloting seat just barely visible through a screened window. "You sure these things are safe? Ground cars and trams could've done just as nice."

"Ground cars and trams don't visit where we're going," Simon assured the captain.

Mal did not like not being in control of the car. He felt odd staring at the heavily cultivated fields with their prim and trim clumps of conifers still standing tall, proud and green amid the snowy fields.

A few minutes later they entered the estates and Mal clamped his mouth shut. He saw mansions upon mansion, easily as expensive as anything on Bellerophon. Each palace was set far back from the street, amids a park for a yard, all surrounded by electrofencing and security systems.

The cab came a stop at one particular mansion taking up three acres of land on a corner lot. The home appeared to have multiple levels contouring the side of a hill that led down to a lower level in the back. It very likely cost more than _Serenity_ itself.

"Nice place," Mal said dryly.

"We never starved," Simon confirmed.

They shuffled out of the taxi and moved to the wrought-iron fence that shut the sidewalk to the home off from the street. Oddly enough, the rest of the lands were surrounded by more electro-fencing. Only the gate was iron.

The gate opened over its own accord as the three approached. The front door opened, and a woman stepped out. She was immaculately dressed in a dark blue _qi_ _pao_ Chinese dress with floral prints. Her blatantly colored dark hair was curled into an artful pile at the base of her skull, held in place by a golden clasp.

She stood frozen in place at the entrance of her home as she stared at the trio before her. River, though, walked up to her as casually as if she saw her mother every day. "_Mu Mu_," she said as she hugged the woman.

Regan Tam made no move at first to return the hug. She stood stiffly, staring over River's shoulders at Simon. Finally, though, her arms lifted and she wrapped the girl in a tight embrace. "_Nu er_," she said. "My little River." She closed her eyes and began weeping on River's shoulder. Her breath steamed up like smoke through her daughter's hair.

River stepped back. "Don't cry, _Mu Mu_," she said. "It's okay now. Simon saved me."

Regan Tam looked over her daughter's shoulder at Simon, who now stood only a foot away. "Simon. I've missed you so."

"And I you, Mother," Simon said as he also hugged her.

"Let's walk." She stepped out and closed the door behind her. The four of them began a slow trek around the Tam estate.

"You shouldn't have come here," Regan finally said as they cleared the corner of the house and stared down a long series of steps leading to a depression in the back of their spacious yard. "They've tapped our Cortex and wave signals. They probably saw your wave."

"That's why I told you I'd meet you in three days at the park," Simon said. "I knew you would understand."

"Understand what?" Mal asked.

Regan turned to study the captain.

"Mother," Simon said, "this is Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the transport ship _Serenity_. He's provided a home for River and I since we left." He purposely left off the fact that Mal also was using River to commit acts of theft and smuggling.

"I've heard about you on the Cortex," she said. "The Captain who revealed the truth about Miranda." Her smile was dry and humorless.

Without warning, River squealed and left the men and her mother and went straight down the side of the yard to a tall pole topped by a spider-web of hanging wires. With a delighted giggle, she grabbed the grips at the end of one of the main strands and began running around in a circle. Her boots left a circle of black earth in the thin coating of snow. The entire contraption spun with her and by some internal device augmented the speed and power of her short run until her feet were off the ground and she was spinning around quite fast.

"She always did love that," Regan said wistfully. She lifted her thumb to her lips and absently chewed a nail.

River let go at the height of the rotation. She flew through the air, somersaulted twice and landed cleanly on her feet. Then she sat down abruptly in the snow. "I'm dizzy," she said with a laugh.

"That I don't doubt it," Mal said.

Regan just stared as if struck. "She didn't used to do that," she said softly.

"It's just part of what the Academy did to her," Simon explained. "They tortured her, Mother. They cut into her brain and altered her. They turned her into a weapon, but they did so much more." Simon's voice almost broke. "They hurt her, Mother. They hurt her in ways none of us can imagine."

Regan moved from the nail of her thumb to the quick, and only stopped when she tasted blood and saw she had bit into her thumb. River was trudging back up the side of the hill and stopped in front of Regan. "I forgive you for sending me to that place," River said.

"It wasn't your fault, Mother," Simon said. "River wanted to go."

When Regan Tam spoke, her voice was thick with emotion. "She wanted to go because I convinced her. They came to me and said they wanted her. I should have said no. But she was so frightening, Simon. Her intelligence was so…."

"Yeah, she's a might hard to be around," Mal muttered.

Simon, however, ignored the captain and stared at his mother with open horror. "You knew what they were doing?"

Regan turned to her son, pleading. "They promised to get you into the finest medical programs there were. You know money isn't enough. You have to be an Old Family to get into those programs. We got you the best education you could have had and afforded you an incredible opportunity."

"At the expense of my sister's mind and soul?" Simon said. He spat the words. "Does father know about this?"

"Father knew," River said. "That's why he killed himself."

"What?" Simon said.

River, however, held a hand to her mother's cheek where a wisp of steam was rising from the trail of her tears. "I see it in your mind, Mother. What you saw when you ran into the study. He found out what they did, what they were doing. More even than you know, he found out the secrets of the Academy."

"He'd been digging ever since you and Simon ran," Regan confirmed. "He wouldn't tell me what he found, only that he'd found someone in the government to help his research. Then one day he came home as if he'd seen a ghost. He said it was all going to crash down around us. He went into his office, and I heard the gun go off. And he never told me why."

River leaned forward until her lips brushed her mother's ears. "It is all going to come crashing down," she said softly, but still loud enough for the others to hear. "I've seen it in my dreams. Everything we know is going to end, and our worlds are going to run with blood."

She leaned back and studied her mother's stricken expression. Then, inexplicably, she grinned brightly. "So, will you help Simon get his money?"

Two hours later, Regan Tam handed over the credit chip to her son. It was only a black cylinder, small to be worth so very much. Kaylee had not returned from her parts-hunting mission yet, but Zoe and Jayne were in the ship stocking provisions. Mal stood near the ramp to the main cargo bay and watched while the Tam children said their final goodbyes to their mother.

He almost jumped when he saw Long John suddenly standing beside him, also watching the odd reunion. After handing the credit chip over, the Tam matriarch reached for Simon, only to have him shake his head with a clenched jaw and turn his back on her.

River lingered a moment before she wrapped her mother in a tight hug and then turned and walked up the ramp. Regan left with a stricken expression and tears in her eyes.

Simon was scowling as he accompanied a somber River up the ramp. "Not quite the happy reunion," Mal noted.

"She knew what the Academy was," Simon said in disbelief. "She sent her own daughter to be tortured."

"She had to choose," River said from behind him. "Your success for my life. She chose."

"How can you forgive her so easily, River?"

River smiled. "How can you hate her so easily?" She paused by Long John and seemingly without even thinking about it ran her hand down the length of his bare right arm before she continued further into the ship. "Mother smells like apples," she said suddenly to the air. "I want an orange." She skipped off into the ship.

"About the Academy…" Simon started.

"No more talk 'bout that," Mal said. "You heard what she said, Cortex is ken to us 'bout now—in my mind that means we best be on our way. Your little mama code don't mean we're safe here."

"I'll give you half," Simon said.

Mal blinked and did a double-take. "What?"

Simon held up the credit chip. "Half. A hundred and eighty-four thousand credits. That's over half a million platinum. That could pay for your ship and supplies for ten years."

"What could possibly be in that gorram place worth that much?"

Samhail Afolabi walked toward them from the back of the cargo hold. Having overheard, he said: "Like I told you, Captain. Answers. Answers to what they did to River, and possibly even more important—why they did it. I suspect Simon's father discovered the truth, and it destroyed him."

"I have to know, Captain," Simon said, glancing from the former operative to the Captain. He pointed into the ship toward the galley where River had gone. "I've been studying the scans I took at Ariel, Captain. It's more than just the cutting they did on her brain. They made changes to her on a cellular level. They introduced foreign mitochondrial agents to her cells I've never seen or even heard of before. They have changed her baseline genetic makeup to an extent that makes her almost inhuman. I have to know why! It's worth everything to me. Please."

"And you have any thoughts on getting' us in there?"

"I've been thinking about it the entire way here," Simon said. He turned to Afolabi. "With help, I think we can do it. And River's coming with us."

"_Aiya_," Mal said with a shake of his head. "I must be some kind of stupid. All right, when Kaylee is back, we get the ship prepped, then we think about your little Academy job."

Simon nodded. "Thank you, Captain. I'll need to go get some things for the job, but I'll be back in a few hours."


	6. The Academy Job

**Grayangle**--This next chapter is the first of the big reveal. By the end of this chapter and next, you'll know exactly who he is and what time frame in the GFFA he came from. I hope you enjoy, and thank you very much for the review!

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Six: The Academy Job**

"You look mighty fine, Sir," Zoe said.

"Don't that beat all?" Mal said with a tight grin. "A browncoat grunt in an Alliance colonel's uniform." He turned to Simon. "How'd you go about procurin' this piece of fine fabric?"

"Blackout zones and Samhael Afolabi," Simon said. "They're off the Cortex. Everything is for sale there."

They gathered in the kitchen to prepare for the job. Kaylee was sitting beside Simon, watching closely. "That's where I got the parts I need," she added. "Got 'em for a steal."

"Do they work?" Mal demanded.

She gave the captain a look that questioned his sanity. "Duh. 'Course they don't. Not yet. But they will. And I got 'em for a steal!"

"That's my girl," Mal said with a wink. He turned as Jayne entered the room wearing an Alliance enlisted man's uniform.

"How come you're a gorram colonel," he nodded to Mal, then to Simon, "he's a gorram general, and I'm a piss-ant corporal?"

"Because you're stupid," Mal said. "_Dong luh mah_?"

"Ain't no call to be ornery," Jayne said. "Just asking."

"It is imperative that you do not speak," Samhael said to the larger man. "Do not talk. Your accent gives you away. If you say one word, they will know you are imposters and they will shoot you on sight."

"Can I shoot 'em back?" Jayne asked.

"That might be difficult, seein' as how you'll be corpsified and all," Mal pointed out.

"You are all idiots," Inara declared. "There is no way you can just walk into a secured Alliance compound."

Beside the Companion, wearing a tight dress with slits up to her thighs and form-fitting shorts beneath, River smiled. "But they're our idiots," she said.

Mal and Jayne exchanged a look. "I liked her more when she was crazy," Jayne said.

"I'm still crazy," River assured him. "I'm just heavily medicated."

"Better living through pharmacology," Zoe chimed in.

"Amen!" Wash said, himself coasting lightly on morphine.

"Now, you're proposing that we just stroll in all cozy-like, pretending to be high-fallutin' Alliance types," Mal summarized. "And you think they're gonna buy this load of _tsway-niou_? They know who you are."

"They won't when we get there," Simon said. He held up a hypoderm. "Dermaplasmositic fluid. It temporarily changes the collagen and melanin content in the skin."

"Can you put that in dumb captain talk?"

"I'll be a black man," Simon said.

"What about River?" Jayne asked.

"I don't think it will change her into a black man," Zoe said.

Jayne grunted.

"She's going just as she is," Simon said. "She's our ticket in."

"And John," River announced.

Every pair of eyes turned and stared. John sat silently, listening intently even though everyone knew he didn't speak the language. "He has to go," River said.

"Why is that?" Inara asked.

"Don't know."

"Then he doesn't have to go," Mal said.

"He has to go," River said again, resolute.

"River, he could possibly be the one person on this boat more moon-brained than you," Mal said. "He ain't going."

"Yes," John said in clear, accented Anglo, "I am."

The room fell eerily quiet.

"I was the impression you didn't speak Anglo, my young friend," Book said.

"I didn't," John said. His voice was deep and seemed to rumble through the room. "I do now."

"How?" Mal demanded.

"I listened."

"So you remember who you are?" the captain said.

"Not yet."

Mal stared down at the man from the head of the table, only to have him stare back. "So why do you wanna go?"

"My past. It's in there."

"How do you know?"

"Don't know."

River beamed back at the captain. "See. So, when do we go?"

* * *

The next evening just before dusk, a hovercar bearing the Alliance Military seal and four stars on its door came to a halt directly over the security perimeter fence of a non-descript warehouse on the far outskirts of Alexanopolis two hundred miles northeast of Novathebes. 

Five armed soldiers without any insignia emerged from their security kiosks as the car hovered out of the secure airspace and came to a halt before the heavily secured gate.

An Alliance corporal jumped out of the driver's side and ran around to open the back door. The soldiers saw four stars on the light gray uniform and snapped to attention as the general climbed out. The man had an Anglo-Sino cast to his face, with deeply rich, ebony skin. Immediately after him came a wan-looking young woman with sad, woeful eyes, a relative giant with a huge mane of black hair that made the girl look like a child, and after those two a colonel. The young girl and giant had electro-binders on.

"General," the captain of the guard said. "We were not informed of any Alliance visits today."

"This is not a visit," the General said. "Do you recognize this girl?"

The captain stared a moment, eyes wide. "Yes, sir. But how…."

"Form a detail as escort," Simon ordered shortly.

The Captain nodded but did not salute. He turned and led four of the guard in an escort around River as they stepped past security into the Academy itself.

Once past the front door, all illusion of the Academy being a warehouse ceased. The antechamber inside the door was a bright, sterilized white. Directly opposite them was another door and beside it a white desk, behind which sat a woman in a form-fitting black dress that stood out sharply from the white walls. The only thing decorating the walls themselves was a large Blue Sun logo, and the Corporate motto: "Live Life with Blue Sun."

"Hello, River," the woman behind the desk said with a brilliant smile that extended no higher than her nose. She was startlingly beautiful, with honey-colored hair that, when mixed with her own ebony skin, seemed a bit artificial. Her face showed not even a hint of surprise that River was there. "I thought we might someday see you again."

River stared at the woman blankly. "She is heavily medicated," Simon explained. "It was the only way to safely transport her and her companion."

"I understand," the woman said. She stared at Long John. "An interesting specimen." Then to Simon. "What is your name, Sir?"

"General Westland," Simon said. "This is Colonel Schwartz." He offered an ident card, as did Mal, who kept his face lowered.

The woman swiped both cards. "Very good, General. Colonel. Thank you very much for returning our lost sheep."

The secured interior door opened and two burley men in black shirts and slacks stepped out, heading toward River. "We're very glad to have you with us again, dear," the woman said to River.

River turned and looked at the woman as the two men approached. She smiled.

The woman paled as her hand rose to hit the security alert switch.

River blurred into motion. Her faulty binders fell open to the floor as she leapt from the center of the four soldiers toward the woman in a flying sidekick that sent the receptionist sprawling to the floor before her hand had time to fall the six inches onto the security alert.

The four soldiers, too stunned to react immediately, still broke out of their reverie and raised their weapons fast enough. Simon and Mal removed pen-sized wands from their sleeves and held them to the necks of the two nearest soldiers as the wands sparked.

The men stiffened and fell. Jayne grabbed a third soldier and head-butted him. The soldier's eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed.

The fourth, realizing what was happening, started to shout a warning to the two men in black shirts and slacks to get back behind the security door when his view was suddenly obscured by the back of a large fist. He crumpled to the floor beside Long John, who other than the punch had not moved.

The two men in black turned and ran for the door. A blur of pale skin and blue dress slid in front of them. Both men stood over six feet and massed easily over two hundred pounds a piece. As River slowly rose to her feet in the open doorway before them, dwarfed by their size, they backed away from her as if facing a deadly animal.

They never even looked over their shoulders when Mal and Simon shocked them.

Mal looked around at the mayhem and took a deep breath. "That was downright refreshing," he said. "Jayne, help me get these folks secured."

"Yes, Cap'n," Jayne said as he pocketed two pistols and threw an assault rifle over his shoulder.

"We don't have much time," Simon said. "Grab their idents!"

John calmly removed the idents to two of the soldiers, then lifted both in each hand by their belts and carried them without noticeable effort to behind the desk. When they had the others secured and tied safely behind the receptionist desk, they all ran through the security door and into the academy itself.

The bright sterilized room dimmed into moody red light that provided just sufficient illumination to keep them from tripping over each other. Lining each wall were square windows shining with the white light from inside each room.

Mal paused and looked into one. He saw a young man not much older than River. The man's face was fixated in an expression of horror as he pounded his head against the thick padding of the floor. Even with the padding, blood splattered against the wall and dripped to the floor with each blow.

The next room had a young woman very carefully tearing perfect geometric shapes from her white clothes, which were arranged on the floor around her naked body. Mal continued, but noticed Jayne lingering at the window. "We need to save her too, Cap'n," Jayne said.

"She killed her last guard and tried eating his genitalia," River said lightly over her shoulder.

Jayne paled and stepped away, though his eyes still lingered.

"These folks all crazy?" Mal asked.

"Like me?" River finished the thought. "I was a success. These are the failures."

"Were there any more successes?" Simon asked.

"One or two," River said.

"We're supposed to be going to the data room, right?" Mal asked. "I suggest we be on our way."

They turned a corner with Simon in the lead, following the path they had all memorized. All, that is, except River and John. The two paused for a moment, shared a glance and a nod, and then continued straight ahead.

"_Dang-ran_," Mal said, muttering in Chinese. He turned to Simon. "I thought you said you dosed her up right."

Simon shook his head in frustration as they ran off after her. "River," he said as he caught up with her and took her arm. "Where are you and John going?"

She shrugged out of his grip. "This way," she said, pointing.

"Why?"

"The answers. They're all this way."

"The database interface room is the other way, _Mei Mei_. We have to go."

She looked up at him and smiled, her eyes bright. "That's not the truth we need, Simon."

"She's right," John said. His deep voice still startled them all. "Something is telling me we need to go this way."

With that ambiguous explanation, River and John turned and headed back down the hall.

Simon once more took the lead as they turned a corner. Directly ahead they saw two heavily armed soldiers standing on either side of a heavily armored door with a variety of locks on it. "Halt and identify!" both soldiers ordered as they each dropped to one knee and aimed their assault rifles.

"General Westland, Alliance Command," Simon said as he stepped forward past his sister and John.

"General, no personnel are allowed in this part of the building without express corporate authorization. Step forward and present your authorization."

"Yes, lieutenant," Simon said, stepping forward calmly. He handed his ident card to one of the soldiers.

That soldier turned to run the card through his security scanner while the other kept his rifle pointed at Simon.

Jayne, who until then had lingered behind them and remained hidden around the corner, chose that moment to step out. He pulled his stolen rifle over his shoulder in one swift, practiced motion and fired a single round.

As the first guard spun around in alarm, his hand dropping toward his weapon, the second guard's head exploded and sent the dead man sprawling backward against the door. Simon brought his wand up, but the first guard blocked the move with his wrist and brought his hand palm-up and struck Simon square in the face.

As Simon stumbled back, stunned from the blow, and while Mal reached for his own sidearm, River once again exploded into motion, somersaulting down the hall until, just as the soldier was bringing his rifle up, her brought the heels of both her feet down on his head.

His whole body shook from the blows, and then he quietly collapsed to the floor.

The lights overhead blinked.

"They've activated the security," Simon said as he wiped blood from his lip. "We have to hurry. What do we do, River?"

She held her hand over the security pad of the door and closed her eyes. Simon watched in silence as Mal and Jayne ran up the hall and John walked calmly to their sides.

Suddenly the pad began to blink as letters, numbers and Chinese symbols flashed by in an almost infinite combination of twelve digits. With twenty-three letters in the Anglo alphabet, 9 numbers and almost 60,000 Chinese symbols, those twelve spaces had 2.19 to the 57th power possible combinations.

The first symbol locked into place as River stood, her hand near but not touching the pad. Her eyes were closed, but beneath her lids Simon could see her eyes moving rapidly, as if either in REM sleep, or as if she were seeing possible combinations playing out in her mind.

"What's she doing?" Jayne said as he, Mal and John joined them.

"Shh!" Simon urged. Watching her with awe on his face, he said, "Somehow she's interfacing with the security program itself. She must be performing some type of algorithmic calculus in her brain. Something people just aren't physically capable of doing."

"Ain't that something," Mal said, without even an ounce of understanding in his voice. "Think maybe she could be getting them algorithy-thingies along, seeing as how we're gonna have half the gorram Alliance on our p_ee-goo_ any minute now?"

The second and third digits blinked into place in quick order, followed by the fourth and fifth a second later. The rest fell into place shortly after that. The door clicked opened and River stepped back, blinking. "I'm tired," she said sadly. She leaned back into John, her head coming just past his midriff. He put a large hand on her shoulder and patted it comfortingly.

"It's okay, _Mei Mei,_" Simon said as they all turned to the door.

They emerged into a cold, dimly lit room filled with… "Coffins?" Jayne said at the edge of the door. "No way. I ain't goin' into no meat locker."

"Stand guard, then," Mal snarled as he too took an unhappy look around the space. "Little girl, what have you gotten us into?"

John stepped past them all, moving from one coffin to the other and staring in through the glass windows at the top of each. As he moved, his face darkened and the odd white stripe across his nose and cheeks turned almost a yellow color with his rage.

River followed more slowly. She also walked among the glass-enclosed coffins, running her hand along the cold surfaces as she did so. "She was so scared," she said when she reached the second one. "Their ship was attacked. They were going to die. Then they came. Two by two. Hands of blue."

She stopped and stared down into the coffins. Simon joined her, and through the narrow window saw the calm face of a young woman in her early twenties. "I carry her in me," River whispered as she hugged herself. "I feel her. She is my mother. My sister. Me."

Her fingers ran across a control board and the coffin suddenly opened with a hiss and a wash of bitterly cold air.

"A cryotank?" Simon asked. "River, is she sleeping…?"

He stopped when he saw the rest of the young woman's body. "_Wuo de ma_," Simon whispered.

The woman appeared to be in her early twenties, with sandy blonde hair and a pretty set to her jaw. Even with her pale, frozen skin, she was attractive from the neck up. From the neck down was a nightmare. Simon had seen similar disfigurement before, while conducting autopsies and in medical school. With a glance up at the captain, who had arrived and stepped back with a sharp intake of breath, Simon reached down to the base of the woman's skull. He tilted it just enough to see…

"They removed her brain," River confirmed. "They wanted to know what made her the way she was. But they did tests first. They kept her alive while they cut her. She was so scared. So alone."

Suddenly John was there, his face almost purple with rage. He reached down with one large hand and placed it on the girl's face.

All of them stepped back, even River, when his back arched, he threw his head back and roared with pain.


	7. Ghosts

**Chapter Seven: Ghosts**

"_He can't hear you," the Chiss named Thrass said. His blue face was unreadable to Lorana, his red eyes chilling. And yet, in the Force, he projected grim resolve and unshakable faith. "The com isn't transmitting at this end."_

_Jedi Knight Lorana Jinzler closed her eyes for a moment before she turned to look at the planetoid _Outbound Flight_ was quickly approaching with minimal controls and no sublight or hyperdrive engines. They were fleeing forces of the Trade Federation and Thrass's own Chiss Ascendency, from which certain elements wanted very much to obtain the weaponry on the failed colony ship. If Master C'Boath were alive (and not fallen to the Dark Side) he might have thought of a better solution. _

_Lorana Jinzler, newly knighted and young enough to be terrified, could think of none.__E "He can't heHe _

"_We have no choice," she whispered, her voice on the verge of breaking. "We'll have to rotate and put D-Four on top."_

_The Chiss nodded with complete understanding. "Which will put D-One—this one—at the very bottom."_

_They really did have no choice. To save the few remaining civilians that had survived Thrawn's radiation bomb, they had to land the ship. To land the ship, they had to soft-land using one of the six dreadnaughts attached to the storage core to cushion the impact with the planetoid. They had to keep the civilians as far above the surface during the landing as possible._

"_We have no choice," Lorana repeated herself. "It's only an assumption that the bottom Dreadnaught will take enough of the impact to leave the others intact. For all we know, they might all hit hard enough to be ripped open to vacuum. We have to try to keep D-Four as far out of the rock as possible."_

"_I understand," Thrass said. "There's still time for you to leave, you know. You may at least be able to get to the core before we hit, perhaps even all the way to D-Four."_

_Lorana shook her head. "You can't handle the landing alone," she said. "But I could do that while you go."_

"_And who would keep the remaining systems from self-destroying while you cleared a path through the pylons for me? No, Jedi Jinzler. It appears we will both be giving our lives for your people. _

_Outside, the planetoid rushed toward them as they spoke more and prepared to give their lives so that 57 civilians might live._

_Suddenly the hatch to the bridge exploded inward. Lorana turned, stunned, as two men stepped in flanked by a dozen or so Trade Federation battle droids. One of the men was older, with thinning hair. The younger had dark hair as well, clean shaven and scared-looking. Both wore odd blue gloves._

"_What are you doing here?" Lorana demanded. "What is the meaning of this?"_

"_Jedi Jinzler," the older man said. He lifted a small wand before his face. _

_A terrible pressure began pushing against Lorana's ears and eyes. She gasped and then screamed as she held her hands over her ears and fell to the floor. Blood ran from her nose and ears._

_Nearby, she sensed Thrass also collapse, gasping in pain as an odd purple blood ran from his nose, eyes and ears._

_Then everything went black. _

_An eternity later, everything came back with blindingly bright suddenness. Strange faces in surgical masks stared down at her, speaking a language she had never heard. She tried to push with the Force, but the terrible pressure she felt on _Outbound Flight_ remained and prevented her from touching the Force. She managed to roll her eyes low enough to see a bladed instrument in the hands of one of the men standing over her._

_He lowered the blade, and Lorana Jinzler screamed._

"What's wrong with him?" Mal demanded.

"I have no idea," Simon said.

Suddenly John lifted his hand from the frozen body and stumbled back, his face no longer furious, but still flushed red as if stunned. "By the Force," he whispered. He straightened and stumbled to the next coffin. As the others watched, he opened it to reveal…

"_Wu de tyen ah_," Mal cursed as he saw the body.

"What the gorram hell is that thing!" Jayne demanded.

It was a woman. But a woman like none they had ever seen before. Her skin was not blue from the cold of the cryotank, it was simply blue. And instead of hair, two thick tentacles sprouted from her head. Her face was pretty, but her body was riddled with black burn marks and a T-shaped cut that opened up her entire torso—just like the last one. Also like the last one, an incision across her forehead and around the sides of her skull showed they had studied her brain as well.

Sobbing, John placed a hand on this alien woman's cheek. His eyes closed and his whole body thrummed as a deep, primal growl built in his throat.

"_Master Quin," she says, sobbing. "I remember now. I remember it all." She falls into his embrace, her lekku curling against his arms. "I am so sorry. I could see myself doing what I could not stop myself from doing. I felt trapped within a sea of…of…"_

"_Darkness," Quin finishes for her. He holds his padawan closely as his heart aches for her pain and loss, and the horrors she suffered at the hands of the Anzati. "I know it well," he continued. "You are free of it now. My Padawan. We are free."_

_Time flashes. She stands watching a message Quin recorded, telling her he is going over to the Confederacy. Her heart breaks as his betraying words scald her soul. _

_And then later, she faces her former master and sees the darkness in his eyes. "Shut up!" Quin screams. "You don't understand! I have convinced them I've gone over to the Dark Side, but it's a lie! Just give me the package!"_

_They are in a swamp on the dying world of Honoghr, and Quin stands before her in rage, flecks of orange in his eyes, as he rages for the Scientific Information Packet from the crashed ship that is killing the world of the Noghri. _

_Her heart breaks, but she knows she cannot do what he asks. "Or you'll kill me," she whispers, slowly turning her back on his lit red Sith blade. "That's what you said. That's what you'll have to do, Quin. I'm not giving you the SIP. Not for the sake of Republic. For your own sake."_

_Time flashes. Saleucami. Aayla watches Quin fighting desperately with the dark Jedi Sora Bulq. She falls to her knees and reaches out to him with the Force. "You are a being of light," she tells him through the Force. She touches his heart, and in that moment washes the darkness from him._

_Then comes Felucia. Commander Bly, her long-time comrade and soldier, raises his weapon to her back without hesitation, regardless of the years they have spent together, and with the others under her command, guns Aayla Secura down._

_Aayla's last thoughts are not on her betrayal or death. They are on her former Master, fighting across the galaxy on Kashyyk. "You are a being of light," her soul whispers to him. _

After an eternity of only a few seconds, he lifted his hand from the cold blue cheek and fell to his knees before the coffin, sobbing. "Aayla," he whispered.

He felt a small hand on his shoulder and looked up at River. She said nothing, merely knelt beside him.

And then the missing flash of John's life, stirred by Aayla's own memories, struck, and it all came into place.

_Quinlan Vos hurt._

_There was simply no other way to describe the emotions battering at the Jedi master's mind._

_His physical pain was almost a relief compared to the anguish Vos was feeling. _

_Within sight of his place on the viewing platform of the Juggernaut tank, Vos could see the battle still raging at the seawall of Kachirho. Juggernauts, AT-AP and AT-RT walkers with hundreds of clone troopers and Wookiee warriors fought valiantly against the NR-N99 droid tanks, the DSD1 dwarf spider droids and the heavy missile platforms of the Confederacy droid army._

_Try as he might, Quinlan Vos, Jedi Master and general of the Republic, did not care. His thoughts could not focus on the beings dying on the beach nearby, or on his friend Vilmarh Grahrk and the Devaronian's co-pilot, Chak, speaking quietly a few hundred meters away. He could not even summon concern for the war raging across the galaxy._

_His thoughts centered on a woman named Hentz. Khaleen Hentz. He loved her more than he loved the Jedi. He loved her more than he loved his own life, and the thought of living his life without her was unbearable. _

_The thing holding him back was a lifetime of training and a commitment made to friends who had become family. To Aayla and Master Tholme, and all those fellow Jedi that he cared so deeply about._

_The two opposing needs warred within him, and the Force gave no clear direction for him to go. He knew his love was selfishness. Yet, he had suffered so much, since losing his memory to fighting the Anzati hordes and almost loosing his soul to the Dark Side. Did not even the Jedi deserve some small pittance of happiness?_

_Through the constant ebb and flow of the Force, he could feel Luminara Unduli, Master Healer, exercising her skills on fallen troops, while nearby Commander Faie gathered his clone troopers to reinforce the front line._

_Master Yoda stood on an observation high above the beach front on one of the massive wroshyr trees in which the Wookiees lived, directing the battle below. Unlike the younger Jedi, Yoda did not feel the need to lead from the front lines. If more Jedi followed the wizened master's example, there would be more Jedi._

_Vos took a deep breath and released it to the acrid, smoke-tinged air. His decision was made, and the very act of making it allowed relief to flood across his tortured soul. Quinlan Vos, Jedi Master and General of the Republic, was going to leave the Order as soon as the war ended. _

_His relief was short-lived, however. Suddenly, nothing around him seemed right._

_A surge of darkness rolled across Vos's mind as a great disturbance rocked the Force. He turned and watched incredulously as a neighboring Juggernaut spun its heavy laser cannon toward the overseer's platform where he stood._

_The Force screamed a warning just as the other tank fired. There was no time to light a saber; there was no time to make noise. Vos was half-way off the platform when the laser cannon struck. The resulting explosion seared the Jedi master across the back and sent him flying into the underbrush of the nearby forest as he gulped a lungful of vaporized air._

_He landed in a daze. Even stunned as he was, he began to feel flecks of light in the Force blink out, one by one, dozens by dozens. Nearby, he felt more than heard the startled, agonized cry of his friend Luminara as Commander Faie's men gunned her down without mercy._

_He felt Faie's men moving toward him, and gasping at the pain from his obviously broken arm and the searing pain of his lungs, Quinlan Vos disappeared into the forest._

_Days passed. Faie followed Vos with the tenacity of a born hunter. The Clone Commander eventually cornered the hiding Jedi near a Wookiee village. _

"_Come out, Jedi!" Faie called to the trees. "If you don't, I'll call down an airstrike on this whole area. We'll all be dead—you, me, and your precious Wookiee friends!"_

_Quinlan Vos sprung from the branches of a nearby tree, his saber held firmly in his left arm. Faie reacted instantly as he pulled his rifle up and shot Vos in the stomach. Vos's saber connected with the commander's neck, and in a rush three objects struck the ground—Vos, Faie, and Faie's head._

_Nothing moved afterward._

"_What a mess," Vos heard his friend, Vilmarh Grahrk, say as he rushed into the clearing. From the village, wary Wookiees were also stepping out to view the fallen Jedi._

_To the Wookiees, the Jedi were heroes worthy of their greatest sagas. The respect the great creatures had for the Order came almost to worship. They knew that for a Clone Commander to hunt a Jedi, something terrible had to have happened._

_Behind Villie came his co-pilot, a young Wookiee named Chak. Chak spoke a few grunts to the other Wookiees that Villie was a friend of the Jedi, and that he came to help._

_With the help of the Wookiees from the village, a funeral pyre was quickly constructed. The armor of Faie was stripped away and instead wrapped carefully around the barely conscious Jedi master. _

_The pyre was just beginning to burn in earnest when the rest of Faie's commandos, who had been hunting in separate parties, followed the smoke to the flames._

_They milled around, looking for proof of the Jedi's death. They found the fallen commander's armor with a man inside, and marked it for pick-up by Medic droids at a later date. Then, with a last look at the now unrecognizable body on the pyre, the clone troopers left._

"_All debts paid, Jedi," Vos heard his friend say as the pyre on Kashyyyk burned higher. Nearby, Chak spoke to a few of the village Wookiees, and one gently lifted Vos from the ground and carried him into the dense forest._

_Quinlan woke from his deep healing trance briefly to the sound of grunting and heavy breathing, and a feeling of warm safety. He opened his eyes and realized he was being carried by a giant male Wookiee up the side of the tree. "My thanks, friend," he managed to whisper in the Wookiee's own Shyriiwook._

"_Rest, friend Jedi," the Wookie growled back. _

_When he roused himself from his healing trance, he heard more grunting as two Wookiees spoke, followed by a more human voice. "Yes," the voice said. "I can get him off Kashyyyk to safety. The Jedi are precious. We must save as many as we can."_

_He closed his eyes and sank more deeply into his healing trance. His lungs needed all the Force energy he could send them._

_Even in the depths of his trance, though, he dreamed of Khaleen Hentz. Count Dooku's agent was supposed to destroy him. Instead, she loved him. He felt her lips on his; felt her body pressing against his with a hunger so deep it burned them both._

Someday_, he dreamed. _Someday he would be with her again

I love you, Quinlan_, she said to him as they parted for the last time. _Do not forget me!

_He faded back into the oblivion of his healing trance._

_Quinlan Vos's eyes snapped open, but he could not move. He felt more than heard the faint hum of the stasis field around him. The field seemed to cover his entire body._

_A man walked in wearing a dark business suit. "Master Vos," the man said. He wore a close-trimmed beard with curling hair. He appeared to be approaching thirty. "I apologize for the field. My orders are to ensure you are safe, but also to ensure you do not escape."_

"_Who are you?" Vos managed to whisper. Although his healing trance had helped his lungs, still his breath was shallow and weak._

"_It doesn't matter," the man said. "I don't matter. Only you do." He sat down on a bench opposite the Jedi master. "You might be interested to know it's been five days since we left Kashyyk. The Emperor spoke to the senate and gave proof that your Master Windu tried to overthrow the Republic. The entire Order has been condemned. Thousands of Jedi have been killed."_

_Vos studied the man's face carefully. "You do not seem to approve."_

_The man shrugged. "It doesn't matter what I think. I have to do what I'm told. This is my last mission, you see. My last assignment for my Master. Then I'm free. After eight years, I'll be free. I've got been plans, you see. Big plans."_

_He stood and crossed the meter or so of space between them in what appeared to be a small transport vessel. He held a cantina to the Jedi with a straw. "This is a nutrient drink laced with bacta. It should help your lungs. I've put your arm in a temporary cast until the bacta kicks in. Please don't resist. There is a sedative in a needle directly under your neck. If anything happens to me, you will be put back under."_

"_Then inject me now," Vos said. "Because I will not…"_

_Vos felt a prick in the back of his neck. "As you wish," the stranger said._

"…_alive?"_

_Vos became aware of voices speaking nearby. He fought against the sedative, which only worked in the first place because of his injuries and weakened state. Once he cleared the effects of the drugs from his system, he listened as his captor spoke to another man._

"_He's alive. He suffered severe injuries, but he's alive."_

"_You did well, Jorj."_

"_This was supposed to be it, Kinman."_

"_And it is. This is the last mission. Funds have been transferred to your account as we agreed. You won't ever see me again, and you'll never remember any of this happening."_

"_I understand."_

_Vos heard the footsteps but kept his eyes closed. "Nice try, Master Vos, but we know you're away," the newcomer said._

_Vos opened his eyes and studied the man. He appeared to be in his early fifties with thinning hair. Nothing about him appeared remarkable, save the blue gloves he wore. "Who are you?" Vos said._

"_Kinman, as I'm sure you heard," the newcomer said. "We are very lucky to have found you when we did. If not for us, you would be dead on Kashyyk."_

_Vos smiled as he gathered the Force to him. "Then you don't know the Jedi very well."_

_Kinman smiled calmly and removed a small wand from his left sleeve. "Oh, I've dealt with one here and there. It was a pleasure talking with you, Master Vos. You're contributions to science will be far greater than you will ever know."_

_Vos felt overwhelming pain wracking his mind. It was a pain of a sharper intensity even than the fire that burned him, or the vapor that seared his lungs. It was a piercing stab into the depths of his brain._

_Then there was darkness._


	8. Jedi Master

**Author's Note:** This story was originally posted under Star Wars. However, it was rightly pointed out that since the story is almost entirely from the perspective of the Firefly characters, it would be better housed under Firefly. So, I have changed the story's category. Thank you for reading.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Eight: Jedi Master**

"Uh, Mal?" Jayne said from the door into the storage room.

"What?" Mal asked.

"There's a whole gorram army out here. Want that I should shoot 'em?"

"How many?" Mal asked.

"More men 'n I have bullets," Jayne said, defeat in his voice.

"Just shiny," Mal muttered. He looked from the stunned doctor to where River sat on her knees next to the now completely silent Long John. The man had his head bent down to his knees as if in prayer. He'd stopped sobbing, and now was just sitting there with River's hand on his shoulder. She was singing to him under her breath; Mal couldn't catch the words.

"We're humped," Mal summed up.

Jayne backed away as the door exploded open and a wave of security soldiers with Blue Sun patches on their sleeves flooded the narrow passage between the rows upon rows of coffins, some of which contained aliens even stranger looking than the blue tentacle girl.

"Weapons down! On the floor, now!" several of the soldiers yelled.

Jayne dropped his guns and hit the floor as three men descended on him while the rest rushed forward to Mal, the Doctor, River and John. "You know impersonating an Alliance officer is a pretty hefty crime," Mal said. "You 'n me, we're dead men."

"But now we know," Simon said. "Afolabi was right. There are aliens, and the Alliance knows about them."

Then the soldiers were there. Gloved fists struck Simon and sent him sprawling to the floor. Mal knew better than to wait and dropped down on his own. "Simon Tam!" one of the soldiers said, "You and your accomplices are bound by law."

From the midst of the soldiers came the receptionist, her eyes blazing and a pistol in her hand. "Where's River?" she demanded.

Soldiers pointed the way and she stepped from their midst to survey the damage. She saw the open cryo-tanks and the two criminals in Alliance uniform. She saw River on her knees next to the large man the imposters had called her companion. She was singing softly.

She leveled the gun at River. "Who is he?" she demanded.

River stared back at her for the longest time, and then smiled. The receptionist took a step back.

When River's half-audible song ended, the man looked up. The receptionist backed up even further and the barrel of her gun dipped as the man slowly stood. River rose to her feet beside him, orbiting him like a moon. He looked down at River by his side, at Mal and Simon, then finally back at the armed receptionist.

"Her name was Aayla Secura," he said, pointing at the blue tentacle woman. His deep, growling voice silenced the soldiers throughout the passageway. "She was only twenty-seven." He pointed to the first coffin they opened. "Her name was Lorana Jinzler. She was only twenty-two when you killed her." He reached over his head and touched another coffin. He closed his eyes as if absorbing the essence of the body within. "This was a child. Her name was Allara. She was twelve."

He captured the Blue Sun receptionist with a gaze that made the whole room grow as cold as the tanks it housed. "These were my friends and comrades. My family. You murdered them; you cut them. You desecrated their bodies with your mad, Sith-spawned experiments. You want to know who I am?'

He stepped forward and every soldier there brought their weapons to bear on him. "YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO I AM?" he shouted. Then just as quickly his voice dropped to a whisper of death. "I am Jedi Master Quinlan Vos, and I bring you justice!"

With a roar and a stomp of his foot, Vos's hands exploded in a torrent of blue lightning that flashed through the woman and every person still standing. The woman's screams and the screams of the soldiers behind her rang through the passage, reverberating back into a cacophony of death.

The silence that followed was just deafening. Mal picked himself up and looked over his shoulder at thirty dead soldiers and one dead receptionist. Their bodies still steamed. Then he looked at the man standing in the middle of the hall, his face warped by rage, his eyes flickering with an odd, semi-orange light.

Suddenly River swung around to face him. She placed her hands on his, ignoring the danger of the lightning that lived there. She looked up at him with an expression of such openness, such trust, it even made Mal wince. "Now you know who you are," she whispered loud enough for all to heear. "Don't forget again."

Quinlan Vos blinked down at her, and the flecks of orange faded quickly. He took a step back, sucked in a large gulp of air, and nodded. Then he moved to the coffin holding the body of the one he called Lorana Jinzler. As Simon and Jayne picked themselves up, Vos stared intently at the cryogenic tank before he seemed to find what he was looking for. His fingers moved over a side panel, and with a beep a hidden compartment opened. "As I thought," he said. He still spoke in an angry growl.

He reached in and removed a cylinder perhaps ten inches long. He tossed it to River. "Don't turn it on," he said.

"I won't," she promised. He moved down to the coffin holding the alien he called Aayla.

"You knew her?" Simon asked, finding the courage to speak as he also picked himself up.

"I have known her since she was a child," Quinlan said. "She was my padawan learner, and later a dear friend." His voice caught and he covered the sound by finding yet another compartment in her coffin. He took the cylinder therein and hooked it to his belt. He then looked up and around. The coffins were stacked five high, and at least ten deep.

He moved down a few steps, then leapt up. And up. "_Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze fuh ur-tze_," Mal muttered.

Quinlan Vos jumped to the top-most level in a single un-aided leap, at least twenty feet, and took from it yet another cylinder. He then hopped easily down to the floor to the stunned expressions of Mal, Simon, Jayne and River.

"Huh," Mal whispered. "So, what are you again?"

"Later," Quinlan said. He strode purposefully over the bodies of the slain, smoking soldiers and disappeared through the door. River followed in his wake and the three men realized they had little choice but to do the same. As they approached the door, they heard a strange humming-_buzz_ sound, followed by screams. The three of them rushed out into the hall to discover Vos had dispatched another five heavily armed soldiers so quickly none had even managed to get off a shot.

"Hope this guy's on our side," Jayne muttered.

"He's heading toward the database interface," Simon said. Mal confirmed that indeed Vos had disappeared around another corner.

They rushed after and saw the large man standing with one hand outstretched. Down the hall, on either side of the security door, two Alliance soldiers were flying up and down against the floor and ceiling with sufficient force to leave blood prints.

"I don't believe it," Simon whispered.

"Like the lightning thing was any better," Jayne growled.

Vos dropped his hands and the bodies dropped to the floor. The Jedi continued toward the door and with quick, confident moves grabbed the two cylinders he retrieved from the cryo coffins and activated two beams of gleaming light, one green, one blue. He swung the swords so fast they formed nothing more than paths of lights, and then just as quickly deactivated them.

The door fell inward, cut free from the security lining.

"What in the name of all that's holy is this man?" Mal whispered.

River, standing halfway between Vos and her brother, turned and smiled. "He is everything they wanted me to be." Suddenly she sang: "_From the bank and from the river, He flashed into the crystal mirror, Tirra lirra, by the river, Sang Sir Lancelot."_

Vos stepped just inside and turned back to them. He waved with a single hand. "Our knight beckons!" River said with a gleeful laugh.

She skipped barefoot down the hall as Simon, Mal and Jayne followed. The inside of the room was taken up largely by a circular depression surrounded by a control surface and view screens.

They heard footsteps from outside the door. Quinlan spun around, but did not go for his lightsabers as Samhael Afolabi came running in. "They pulled the perimeter guard," he said as he arrived. "I knew something had to be happening. Where are the rest of the guards?"

"Lightning boy there corpsified 'em all," Jayne said, hitching a thumb toward Vos. "Says his name is Quinny Boss or some-such."

"My name is Quinlan Vos," the Jedi corrected. "I remember now."

Afolabi nodded without apparent surprise and stepped through the depression to the first control surface. His fingers ran smoothly across the pad until Corlingua letters appeared.

Quinlan Vos

Born: 24:10:11 BrS

Capture: 16:5:21

Occupation: Jedi Master

General, Grand Army of the Republic

Race:Kiffar

Origin:Kiffu

Midichlorian Count:18,000

Native Power:Psychometry

"And there you are," Afolabi whispered. Next to the words was a remarkably accurate holographic representation of the Jedi from before the battle of Geonosis.

"So, you're an alien, huh?" Mal asked, the light suddenly shining in his eyes.

"That's an odd term," Vos said. "I am a Jedi Master under the Galactic Republic."

"He means you ain't from these parts," Jayne said.

"Fair enough. I am not. I'm not even sure where I am." He turned and looked down at Afolabi. "You knew I was Jedi?"

"I suspected you were not from this System," Afolabi said. "I have never heard of the Jedi. However, I knew there were records kept here not accessible anywhere in the Alliance. This is a Blue Sun facility. I was allowed in as a Paliamentary representative, but only with limited access. I had to kill an administrator to get even marginal cooperation."

"Why are they doing this?" Simon asked. "All of this. All those bodies. What are they trying to accomplish?"

"To make weapons," River said. "Like Quinlan."

"But why?" Simon asked. "The war is over. They won. Why do they need more weapons?"

"Let us find out," Afolabi announced. He began working the console as the others gathered. "Sadly, we have limited time before more soldiers come. But I do believe with a secured hard-line connection, I should be able to…"

The center of the room flickered, and in moments Vos's image and statistics were gone, replaced by a shadowy figure with pale hands and a large robe with a cowl deep enough to hide all but his wrinkled chin.

"Hello, Master Vos," a wizened voice said from the darkness of the cowl.

The whole room fell into a deep, profound silence.

Vos stiffened as he stared at the image. "You must be Dooku's master," Vos said at last. "Master Windu's Sith Lord. Darth Sidious, is it?"

The figure merely stared at Vos. "You are an anachronism, Jedi Vos," the shadowy figure said. "A man without a place. Without a time."

"I am a Jedi," Vos said.

"There are no more Jedi," the figure said. His grin looked hideous and skeletal, with the gleam of metallic teeth. "The battle in which you were captured marked the end of your Order. All the Jedi are dead."

Mal watched intently as Vos stared at the hologram, as if searching for a way to prove the statement was a lie. From the lowering of his shoulders, Mal guessed no such way was found.

"What are you doing with these people?" Vos demanded.

"I am saving their pitiful lives," the figure said.

"From what? What evil could be worse than the Sith?"

"Perhaps you shall live to find out," Palpatine said. "Then again, perhaps not." Slowly the holographic shadow turned its cowl-covered head and looked at River. "My child. We have not forgotten you. Soon, you shall be ready."

River stood frozen, like an animal caught in the gaze of a deadly predator. She shook her head with a whimper, but was not able to get any words out. With a beep, the hologram flashed away, leaving the room empty, but also somehow brighter.

"Did anyone understand what is happening here?" Mal asked.

"We need to leave this place," Vos said. He lit his laser swords. "Now!"

He spun and sliced a man-sized circle in the walls and darted out of the room. The others followed in his wake. Every time he came to a wall, he flashed his swords and cut a hole, providing them direct access to the exterior.

They emerged into the secured courtyard in front of the building just as an explosion rocked the ground. Mal turned to see a ball of fire rising from the center of the Academy and knew that without Vos, they would have all died.

Their hovercar was still waiting for them, along with a second car Afolabi had obtained. They piled into the two cars and fled into the twilight.


	9. Escape from Osiris

**dragonlots**--Thank you for the review and for reading!

No reviews, but the stats show people are reading. So I hope you all continue to enjoy.

* * *

**Chapter Nine: Escape from Osiris**

"Honey?"

"Yes, Dear?"

"Are we expecting company?"

"Such as?"

Wash leaned forward to peer out of _Serenity's_ windows. "Hmm, a whole lot of men with big guns and armor? Did we forget to put money in the parking meter or something?"

Zoe instantly jumped out of the captain's seat where she and Wash had simply been enjoying each other's company. It was something she liked to do as much as possible since the events at Mr. Universe.

"We've got company!" Zoe called into the ship's com.

From the galley, Book stepped out. "What kind of company?"

"The kind with guns," Zoe said.

Inara followed a step behind, and behind her Zoe could see Kaylee. "What do you want us to do?" Book asked.

"Nothing," Zoe said. "The captain ain't here, no point in trying to pick a fight we can't win." She spun around the corner of the stairs and left the three standing by the galley as she flew down the stairs, two at a time. She made it to the cargo door just as the first boom echoed through the ship.

"Alliance Security, open in the name of the law!" a loud voice called.

With a glance over her shoulder at the otherwise empty ship and the three people in the galley who were steadily making their way down the stairs, Zoe hit the release and stepped back as a horde of soldiers spilled in.

The man in the lead wore an officer's uniform and carried a pistol. "Release your main doors, now!" he ordered.

Zoe did as she was told. As the door folded down, she caught sight of the full force arrayed against them. Wash was not exaggerating. There were a whole lot of men out there—fifty at the very least.

"Can I help you gentlemen?" she asked.

For an answer, she found herself facing the muzzle of a gun. "Zoe Washburn, you and the other passengers of this vessel are bound by law," the gun wielder, an officer, said. Around them, soldiers rushed up the ramp toward Book, Inara and Kaylee. Another squad began searching the ship.

"What is this about?" Zoe demanded.

Rough hands grabbed her wrists and lifted her carbine from the holster on her thigh. She knew better than to even try to resist.

"Your false transponder is a good start," the officer said. He watched as the rest of the crew were brought down. "Where are the others? Malcolm Reynolds, Jayne Cobb, and Simon and River Tam?"

"They went out shopping," Zoe said.

The officer backhanded her just as a pair of soldiers escorted Wash down the stairs. "Hey!" he shouted. "That's my wife you just hit!!"

"Honey," Zoe said, forcing calm as she wiped a drop of blood on the back of her hand, "shut up."

"But he hit you!" Wash said as the soldiers continued dragging him down.

"The Rule of the Gun," Zoe said without taking her eyes off the Alliance soldier. "Those with the most guns make the rules."

"One more time," the officer said. "Where are the others?"

"You mean me?"

The officer turned. Zoe sighed and shook her head. Fifty soldiers turned and pointed fifty assault rifles.

Malcolm Reynolds stood alone at the lip of the loading ramp. He had changed out of his Alliance uniform and now wore his familiar pants and shirt with the glaring brown overcoat that shouted Independence to every Alliance soldier there.

The officer stepped between his men, confident in his numbers. "Captain Malcolm Reynolds, you are bound by law."

Reynolds made a show of looking at the squad in his ship. "Nice looking bunch of uniforms there. Be a shame to get 'em all dirty 'n such. How 'bout you and your friends get off my boat, and maybe I'll let you walk away without scuffing you up any."

The officer blinked. "Captain Reynolds, I have fifty weapons pointed at your head. Are you really threatening me?"

"Me? Nah," Mal said. "But my friend behind you is feeling a might peckish."

The officer shook his head. "You are certainly the epitome of the resistance movement, Captain Reynolds. Bravado and stupidity in equally astounding parts." He started to say more, but stopped when he heard a strange snap-hiss behind him.

He turned and behind his soldiers he saw a large man with a mane of dark hair and an odd, yellow-white stripe tattooed from one cheek to another across the bridge of his nose. In both hands he held what looked to the nonplussed captained like swords made lasers, one blue, and one green.

"What is the meaning of this…." The officer turned around. Where before there was just Reynolds now stood three more men and a young woman, all sprouting Alliance assault rifles.

Mal grinned and fired. As the soldiers turned to fire back, the man with the glowing swords exploded into motion. The officer heard his men screaming just as a round struck him in the middle of his chest. He felt a violent shock, followed by cold and then black.

"Hot dang!" Jayne called when the last soldier fell. "Gotta be some kinda gorram record, killing us a hundred men just by our lonesome."

"There were fifty," Quinlan Vos said. "And this was not a battle. It was slaughter." He raised his hand, and the bodies of their own accord slid down the ramp into the suddenly deserted street.

"That's new!" Wash said. "Long John does that hand-push-thingy." He blinked and turned to Zoe. "How did he do that?"

"His name is Quinlan Vos," Afolabi said. "And if you want to survive the day I recommend we launch immediately.'

"We now, is it?" Reynolds asked.

"My fate is yours," the former Operative said. "Those are my prints in the records room. Even with the self destruct, there would have been a live security feed to the nearest Blue Sun security outpost. I am as wanted now as anyone in this room."

"Wash," Mal called.

"On it," the pilot said, as he rather slowly climbed back up the stairs. He clutched the rail as he climbed.

"Does this ship have any weapons?" Vos asked.

"This is a transport ship," Mal said. "We're not allowed to have weapons."

The Jedi raised a brow at the absurdity of that statement, but said nothing.

By the time they reached the flight deck, Wash was already working the controls. "They've put a grounding order on us," Wash said.

"Can we break from the tethers?" Mal said.

"I cut them before you left," Zoe said from behind her husband. "Just in case."

"She's a woman after my own heart," Wash said to any who cared. "Lifting off…now."

"What about planetary defenses?" Vos asked. "Weapons platforms?"

Everyone in the cockpit turned and stared at him. "Why would a Core World have a weapons platform?" Wash asked. "War's over."

"And you have no other enemies?" The Jedi asked.

"Just the Reavers, but they never even get close to this far in," Zoe said.

"Still, might be a cruiser about," Mal pointed out. He took his seat across the way from Wash."

"Or…Alliance patrol cars," Wash said.

Through the viewports they could see a V-formation of flying cars heading toward them. "Are those craft heavily armed enough to damage this ship?" Vos asked.

The lead car started blinking from the center of the airframe, and a moment later the whole cargo ship shuddered under the impact of the slugs.

"Answers that," Wash muttered. He grabbed the ship's intercom handle. "Kaylee, you back in the engine room yet?"

"Yeah," came the reply.

"You remember Whitefall?"

"'Least this time I ain't shot!" Kaylee said.

"That's gonna make a lot of people down there very unhappy," Zoe noted.

Mal looked out the window at all the pretty, shining towers of the city, stretching up and out like a forest of index fingers flipping them all off. "I can live with that," he said. "Do it."

"Kaylee, on the count of three," Wash said.

"Might want to grab hold of something," Zoe said to everyone present.

Wash counted down, and then quickly jerked at the controls. Outside the windows, the cityscape spun wildly as the ship flipped around. There was a surge of power that made the whole ship groan, and into the blue of the sky they shot forward like a rocket.

Although they could not see behind them, if they had they would see the blow-back from the gravity drive create a thermal imbalance similar in appearance to a very large bomb that shattered the windows of every tower in a two kilometer radius and sent the formation of armed flying cars crashing into an insurance tower.

"Good thing we got that money of yours," the captain said over his shoulder to Simon. "Cause its lookin' like we may never work again after that stunt."

"Was it worth it, Sir?" Zoe asked.

Mal leaned back and thought for a moment, then grinned. "You know, I believe it was."


	10. A River of Tears

**Darth Tic-Tac**--I've given up trying to figure out why this one isn't getting more reviews. I have more people reading it that Heaven Falls. Oh well, I don't hijack stories for reviews, so I'll keep posting and hope those reading continue to enjoy.

Thank you for the view.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Ten: A River of Tears**

Walsingham stood on the periphery of the burned out Academy with his hands behind his back.

The Operative did not make a sound as a Blue Sun forensics team scoured the building for evidence of who was behind the assault on the Academy. Additional Blue Sun security forces formed a perimeter guard that Walsingham and his men were not allowed to enter.

The fact the facility exploded was not surprising—all such facilities were equipped with self-destruct mechanisms to contain any internal security breaches. The one time one of the aliens nearly escaped, Blue Sun had lost almost forty contractors and agents, and ended up having to bomb the building anyway to contain the breach.

In this case, according to Walsingham's contacts, this was not an internal breach. And the damage was much, much more severe.

"Operative," the Blue Sun senior agent said by way of greeting. She was a woman approaching forty with the outward appearance of a fit thirty-year-old. "We have this situation under control. Parliamentary interference is not needed at this time.

"Parliament is naturally concerned, however," Walsingham said. "Your company's reports on the matter were vague at best. We know this was the Academy. So what was lost?"

The Blue Sun agent said nothing at first.

"Agent," Walsinghman said, "Parliament cannot just be dismissed or ignored, and I am their Operative. Tell me now, or tell me later under Parliamentary arrest and interrogation. Either way, you will tell me."

"We've lost almost all the samples," the Agent finally admitted.

"Parliament is less than pleased by that news," Walsingham said.

"As is my employer." She looked over her shoulder at the line of Blue Sun soldiers, and then turned back to Walsingham and his own squad of Alliance special forces men. "You should stay out of this, Operative. We've sent out more contractors, and we've activated Cain."

Walsingham did not bother to hide his surprise. "When was this?"

"Only an hour after the fugitives escaped," the Agent said. "That stunt they pulled over the city was too much for us to handle, and we know your superiors are upset to say the least. Over a thousand civilians were injured, a third fatally. My employer felt Cain had the best chance of tracking them."

Walsingham said nothing more for a time as he continued to watch the forensics team. When he did finally break the silence, it was in a pensive voice. "I understand you may be missing a contractor. Any word?"

The Agent's eyes widened. "How do you know about that?"

"We have our sources. Have you found him?"

"Not yet, but we will." She stiffened as if receiving a signal. "Now, Operative, if you will excuse my, I have work to do."

She turned and left. The captain of his unit stepped forward. "Do we need to instruct the Blue Sun guards about jurisdiction, sir?"

"Not today," Walsingham. "I have what I need. Let's go."

Nine people sat and a tenth stood around a table in the galley of _Serenity_ looking at an eleventh in open displays of shock and disbelief. On one side of the table sat Kaylee and Simon, Wash and Zoe, Jayne, Mal, Inara, Book and River. Afolabi stood against the far wall behind the others, but was no less spell bound. On the other side sat Jedi Master Quinlan Vos.

Vos finally stopped talking, and the only sound was the distant thrumming of the ship's engine, and the faint whine of the coolant system of their fridge that had been threatening catastrophic failure for two months.

"Okay then," Mal summed up. He looked around at the rest of the crew. "So, any questions for Mr. Jedi man here?"

Seven hands lifted up. River, Book and Afolabi made no move.

"It's hard to believe," Simon said. "If the galaxy was that crowded, why only now? We made the passage from Earth hundreds of years ago, why weren't we contacted then? And why aren't they just contacting us? Why the subterfuge?"

"The Republic was in turmoil," Vos surmised. "The Clone Wars has been raging for nine years and was engulfing almost all of the Rim Worlds and many of the Core Worlds as well. I don't know why you weren't found before, but my guess would be this is an extreme outer rim system in the Unknown Regions, where the Republic has not had a large presence. For all the civilizations we have, space is still vast. Without hyperspace travel or holonet-level subspace communications, you would never have been found."

"Okay, so there are aliens in the Alliance kidnapping and torturing kids and the Alliance knows all about it," Mal summed up. "What do we do about it?"

"Put our tails 'tween our legs and cower like dogs," Jayne said. "Ain't nothin' we can do 'bout this 'cept keep our heads low so they don't get shot off."

"There is something else that is bothering me about what you said," Book announced. He turned and looked pointedly at River. "You said he spoke to River directly. That he knew her, and that she was almost ready. Ready for what?"

"From the mouth of a Sith, it can be nothing good," Quinlan said. He looked at all of them, one face at a time, until his eyes settled on River. "I don't understand how they pried your mind open to the Force, child. I feel Lorana Jinzler's Force signature in you, but there can be no denying you have power. If you are to have any chance of surviving, you must be trained to wield that power."

Jayne snorted. "'Cause she just ain't crazy enough."

She slowly turned around in her chair and stared. Jayne sat up and looked as if he were about to bolt. "I really can kill you with my mind," she said.

"Yes, you can," Vos said. The others turned and stared, shocked at his confirmation. "But to kill like that invites the Dark Side of the Force. Once you start down that path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Give into it enough, and you become no better than the Sith. You may become Sith."

"You mean she wasn't kiddin'?" Jayne asked.

"She has the power of the Jedi," Vos said. "But without the training. In rage, she could kill with her mind. But she will not do that. Her mind may have been corrupted, but her soul is still pure."

"That's sweet," Mal muttered. "She's a good kinda crazy. Fine. What about the rest of us?"

"We need to find a place and lay low," Zoe said. "Someplace the Alliance wouldn't think to look."

Mal stared across the room. "You ain't thinkin' it."

"Sir, Mr. Afolabi here marked most of our safe havens when he was after us. The Alliance knows. Badger turned on us. Manty and Fango don't trust us. There's nowhere else."

Afolabi in the corner opened his mouth to correct them regarding Badger's current state of being dead, but then decided it was not important.

"Whare are you thinking, then?" Inara said.

Zoe and the Captain continued to stare at each other for the longest time before Zoe finally spoke aloud the thought that seemed to be clouding the air. "Shadow."

"I thought Shadow was a dead world," Kaylee said. "Didn't it get blasted during the Unification War?"

"Like nobody's business," Mal said. "Alliance wrote it off and no one there thought to correct them. And for good reason. It's not a good place to be."

"No one would look for us there," Zoe said.

With a long string of Chinese curses, Mal threw up his hands and walked out of the kitchen. "So if it's a good place to hide," Simon ventured, "why is the Captain so afraid?"

"Because it is the home of the one person in the whole 'verse he is truly afraid of," Zoe said. "His mother."

"What are you doing?"

River stopped mid-stride. She and Quinlan had been meditating in the cargo area when she unexpectedly jumped to her feet and stared walking away.

"Meds," she said, and then she continued on her way. Behind her, Vos stood and followed her.

Her brother was waiting for her in the infirmary with the syringe already waiting. He hated having to give her shots but just didn't have the means of producing the medicine in pill form. Simon looked up in surprise when Vos stepped in right behind River.

"Quinlan," he said. "Are you injured?"

"No, I'm curious about these 'meds' you are giving River. What is their nature?"

Simon bristled, and then took a deep breath to overcome his initial reaction. "If you must know, she's receiving a combination of agents including an antipsychotic, a mood stabilizer, an anxiolytic agent and an antidepressant. It's a cocktail I've been balancing for her particular metabolism. Without the medications she becomes violent both to herself and others."

With his explanation complete, Simon completed the preparation of the injection and nodded to his sister as she climbed up on the table. Suddenly the needle flew from his fingers into the Jedi's waiting hands.

"Mr. Vos, I really appreciate your concern," Simon said, knowing better that to threaten a man who single-handedly wiped out the Alliance academy. "But I am a very good doctor, and I have been treating my sister for over a year now."

Quinlan put the syringe down on a nearby counter. "I feel your love and dedication to her, Doctor. I do not doubt your motivations or your qualifications. But your medicines do not help the problem. They cover it up." The Jedi placed his palm against River's head. She closed her eyes and leaned into the contact, much like a cat leaning into a stroke. "Her mind has been ripped open to the Force using someone else's genetic and…cerebral material. She's suffering memories of Lorana's last moments. Of pain that no living person would ever experience and live. Your medicine can't help that."

"But you can?" Simon said hotly.

Vos dropped his hand. River opened her eyes and stared at the Jedi. "My knight in shining armor," she said in a sing-song fashion. "I think he can. I want him to try."

Simon sighed and turned to start putting the many viols away. "I can't stop you, _Mei Mei_," he said. "But I will be monitoring you very closely. If things start to feel wrong, you need to tell me."

River nodded. To Vos, Simon said, "Some of the drugs I've been giving her do have an addictive quality. There may be some withdrawal symptoms that simply can't be helped." He looked at both of them. "The next few days will be very difficult."

"With the Force, all things are possible," Vos said calmly.

Six hours later, during the middle of the ship's sleep cycle, River sat up in her bed in a cold sweat. The drops of cold rolled down her skin like icy, grasping fingers. She looked up and saw how the shadows leered at her. They spoke harsh, guttural words to her. They wanted to consume her. To sacrifice her to something even darker.

With a terrified whimper, she curled up on her cot and tried to cover herself. Her eyes sought Kaylee's bunk, but it was empty. The mechanic must have been in Simon's room.

The shadows lunged and roared. She covered her eyes and cried out. Then she felt a large hand on her shoulder. It was not a shadow. It felt warm and real and alive. She leaned forward and a pair of arms enveloped her. "Make them go away," she cried.

Quinlan's deep, soothing voice washed over her. As if singing a lullaby, he said over and over again:

_There is no emotion, there is peace. _

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. _

_There is no passion, there is serenity. _

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._

_There is no death, there is the Force._

Perhaps an hour later, Kaylee stepped into the room to discover Quinlan Vos sitting on River's cot, with River curled up like a baby on his lap wearing only her sleeping shirt. It was at once touching, and slightly unnerving to see how gently the large man held her.

"Uh, Mr. Vos?" Kaylee whispered.

"Dr. Tam warned us of withdrawal symptoms," Vos said quietly. "She has had a difficult night. But she is doing better now."

Kaylee couldn't help but smile as she sat down. "I'd say. She's a bit shiny on you."

She was expecting Vos to smile. He did not. Instead, he stared into the middle of the room as if somewhere else. "You okay?"

"Just remembering everything I have lost," he said softly. "Not even the strongest of Jedi are immune from pain."

Kaylee stifled a yawn. "You just treat her right, no matter what."

The Jedi did smile then, and even chuckled. "Don't worry, child. I'll not harm your friend. Just the opposite. It is my hope when all is said and done, very little will be able to harm her."


	11. Flying Into Shadow

Responses to reviews:

Looks around. No review. "Er, never mind." Sadly walks away.

* * *

**Chapter Eleven: Flying Into Shadow**

_Day #1 en route Shadow_

"It's all wrong," River said sobbing. "All wrong. Things move through me. Red eyes, hands of blue. Blue, blue! They're everywhere. Everywhere!"

The two sat in a corner of the cargo room. Others on the ship wandered by either on the gantry at the top of the cargo bay, or along the floor. None appeared to be purposefully trying to eavesdrop, but on such a small ship everyone knew what was happening.

The withdrawal symptoms were much worse than Simon predicted. After almost a year on a cocktail of psychotropic drugs, River had formed a definite dependency. As he wandered by at the top of the cargo bay and looked down at his hurting sister, Simon felt a wave of guilt and self-hatred. He knew it would be bad, and he knew that cutting her off cold-turkey was cruel. The honest part of his soul knew he did it in the hopes she would fail not to hurt her, but to shame Vos. But seeing her suffer was quickly cracking open that selfish shell inside him.

On the floor, Vos felt the conflicted feelings of the doctor above, but dismissed them. He sat cross-legged across from her. "Try, River. Close your eyes. Let the Force flow through you. Let it soothe your pain. Let it ease your memories."

"It's so hard," River said, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. "Two by two, hands of blue. They're coming. The monsters." She sat up, eyes wide. "The monsters are coming! They're going to kill us all! Tentacles reaching. Monsters laughing. Blood." She looked down at her hands which shook convulsively. "There's blood everywhere!"

Vos edged closer and grabbed her shaking shoulders with two large hands. He leaned forward until he caught her feral eyes in his. "I see a saw," she whispered. "It's coming down on my head. They're cutting my head! I can feel it. I'm screaming but they keep cutting!"

Her voice was becoming hysterical again. He reached up and cupped her face in his hands. She instantly went still and stared back at him. "There is no emotion," he told her. "There is peace."

"But there is emotion," she said back, suddenly calm. "I feel it in you. You loved her and she's gone.'

Vos lowered his head and stared at the floor, but did not drop his hands from her cheeks. "We must learn to let go that which we fear to lose," he said, quoting another Jedi Master. "It is a hard lesson to learn, even for Masters."

All shaking stopped. The storm passed quickly. She spoke now with a low, powerful calm. "I need help too, then," she said. "I love you."

At last Vos dropped his hands. "Dear child, you don't even know me. You're in love with an idea. A mixture of memories and thoughts from Lorana and your own loneliness. That is not love. It is intoxication."

"It is a vision," River whispered. "I saw that I would love you. All the worlds will die, but I will love you. In a time of bitterness and hardship, we will have a child, and that child will help change the galaxy."

The Jedi Master became very still. "Do you have visions like this often?"

River nodded, the throbbing in her head forgotten. "I've had such terrible dreams. Something bad is coming. Something terrible. Monsters. Blood. And it's coming soon. I'm frightened."

"All the more reason to learn the Force," Vos said. "You touched it just now, did you feel it? When you remembered your vision. I felt it flowing within you. The pain is better now, isn't it?"

Amazed, River nodded.

"Meditate with me," Vos urged. "There are many wonders I can show you. Forget your fear, at least for this moment."

The two of them stayed in their sitting position for the next hour. Up above, the crew came and went, always pausing to look. By the time Simon came back from Wash's check-up on the command deck, Jayne was leaning over the rail staring down at them and muttering to himself.

The mercenary straightened when he saw the doctor walking in. "What?" he said.

Simon said nothing and continued toward the galley. Jayne continued his muttering, of which Simon got just a hint. "Ain't so tough." Simon continued on his way, terrified of the thought that somehow Jayne might actually be jealous of Quinlan Vos over River.

Day #2 en route to Shadow

River and Vos swung baseball bats at each other with all the zealousness of a deranged baseball fan on Sihnon, where the game was considered a planetary past time.

The sound of wood cracking on wood echoed through the whole ship and drew a crowd at the gantry between the command deck and the galley. "That's very impressive," Inara said to Mal.

"That's a word for it," Mal said.

"Another word for it is freakishly frightening," Wash said.

"That's two words, dear," Zoe said.

"What if I put a hyphen in between?" Wash asked.

"Don't seem so hard," Jayne muttered.

All four of the others leaned over and stared at him. Jayne looked up and shrugged. "Anyone can swing a bat."

Below, River somehow launched into a twelve-foot high double-twisting somersault that put her out of the corner Vos had pushed her into and into the middle of the floor. "Well done!" the Jedi called. Even from the top of the gantry, they could see how the girl beamed with the praise.

"She has it bad," Inara said.

"Ruttin' moon-brain," Jayne muttered.

The rest chose not to say anything. Just then Afolabi walked onto the gantry beside Book. The rest of the crew looked upon the pair with hesitant acceptance that the two seemed to hit it off so well. Other than Inara, who still could make the preacher uncomfortable, Afolabi was the only other person on the ship as well read as Book himself.

The two were seen comparing literature and philosophy at all hours of the day. Now, however, they stopped when they heard the cracking of bats and looked down at the sparring match.

"That is simply remarkable," Afolabi said after a moment. "I do believe in a sword fight she would defeat me."

"Wasn't so hard," Mal said. He did let his lips twitch.

Afolabi smiled. "Indeed. And we both know you walked away with 'nary a mark."

"Nary a one," Mal confirmed.

"Then what have you been showing off to me for the past month?" Inara said with a sly smile.

Below, a used cargo bin lifted off the floor of the bay itself and soared across the room. River danced easily away from it. "That just gives me goosebumps," Wash said. "That is so unnatural."

Suddenly a smaller bin lifted off the floor and hurtled directly at Vos. Below on the floor, the Jedi caught it in one hand, then lowered his bat and stared at River. "Incredible," he said. "Most Padawans study for years before they can move an object during a sparring match."

River paused, then dropped the bat and fell to her knees. "It wasn't me!" she howled.

Hearing his sister's voice, Simon rushed onto the gantry only to see Vos kneeling beside River down below, comforting her.

"Is everything okay?" the doctor said.

"She's just busy moving things about with her brain," Mal said. "Nothing to be concerned about."

"I'm sure," Simon whispered.

On the floor below, River took a deep breath as she centered herself in the Force as Vos was teaching her. It took much longer than it would have for a fully trained Jedi, but after several deep breaths she reached her center. Vos's hand on hers helped more than she could say.

"I'm sorry," she said with a sad smile. "I remembered moving something and did it, but it wasn't my memory."

"Perhaps not," Quinlan said gently. "But it was your power. Do not be ashamed of your pain or ability, River. You are an extraordinary person, and the fact we are here discussing your abilities is proof of it."

She smiled shyly, then glanced up at the gantry and the eyes she felt there. She saw Wash, Zoe, Mal, Inara, Jayne, Book, Afolabi and her brother watching her. The only one not there was…no, Kaylee had just joined them.

"They're afraid of us," she said. "They think you're going to hurt me. That we're going to hurt them. But we're going to save them." Her whole expression suddenly changed. The sad, shy, wounded girl disappeared before a mischievous smile and a twinkling pair of eyes. "Levitate me to them!" she said.

Vos leaned back and very carefully schooled his expression. "Showing off is not an appropriate use of the Force."

She leaned forward until her breath washed across his face, and _sotto voce_, whispered, "Please?"

Above, Simon leaned forward and gripped the rail so hard his knuckles turned white.

"Easy there, Doc," Mal said. "It's a bit of a drop there."

Below, what looked like a pending kiss ended abruptly as River stood and brightly started walking toward the gantry. Suddenly she lifted off the ground with a sparkling laugh and rose up through the air until she floated before the stunned expressions of her eyes.

"Don't worry, Simon," she said and she leaned over and daintily kissed her brother's cheek. "I'm in very safe hands." She grabbed the rail and leaped over it to land by Kaylee, and then started walking toward the galley. "I'm hungry."

When she was gone, the entire crew of _Serenity_ stared down at Vos. The Jedi master shrugged. "Force or not, you try saying no when she looks at you like that," he called up to them.

Day #3 en route to Shadow

"The lightsaber is a unique weapon even in the larger galaxy," Quinlan explained the next morning. He and River once again sat cross-legged across from each other in the main cargo area. "It is almost exclusively the weapon of both the Jedi and Sith. In the hands of a master, it is as lethal as a blaster. As a friend of mine would say, it is an elegant weapon. But it is also dangerous. It could easily take off your own foot or hand with even just the merest second of distraction."

River sat staring up at him with wide eyes, watching every move. The Jedi Master realized she was not listening to a word he said. "River?"

She blinked and smiled. "I could easily take off my foot or hand," she said. "Yes, Master Vos."

"You weren't listening."

"But I heard," she said, not bothering to deny anything. "I like watching you move."

Vos cleared his throat. "River, try to dismiss your feelings for me, if only when we are training. Lightsaber training is very dangerous, especially since we don't have training blades available."

She dimmed her brilliant smile. "Okay." She stood and activated the blue blade, letting the _snap-hiss_ and hum reverberate through the ship. "The blade is weightless," she noted.

"But the handle has a gyroscopic effect to help counter that," Vos pointed out. He activated one of his own sabers, a green one, and moved to stand opposite her. "Now, open your mind to me, River. Let yourself feel my movements. Anticipate them."

Very slowly, Vos swung his lightsaber toward her. She mirrored his movements until blue and green crossed with a crackle of energy. Vos disengaged and did the same to the opposite side, again only to have River counter his move.

In the galley, once again the sound of training attracted a crowd.

"Those are the coolest sword thingies I have ever seen," Wash announced. He turned to Zoe. "Honey, could I have one?"

"No dear," Zoe said. "You'd cut your arm off."

"Or something important," Mal added. "Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong?"

"No," Jayne and Simon both said. The two men shared a look, then quickly broke eye contact as if in disgust that they agreed on anything.

Below, the flashing of the blades grew more rapid as River seemed to fall once more into that dangerous flow of moment that allowed her to defend them all against the Reavers. Vos was more than a match, however. Soon, what started as a simple training exercise turned into a full-blown sparring match.

"Captain," Simon said. "Something's wrong."

"Yeah, I got an alien and a crazy girl swinging laser swords in the hold of my ship," Mal said.

"No, with River. Look at her eyes."

Mal looked, and he saw it—that wild, lost, feral look she had in the bar where she laid half the occupants flat and would have happily killed Mal.

Below, Vos seemed to sense it as well, but did nothing to stop the suddenly vicious attacks. River moved with stunning speed and grace for someone not born to the Force. But as they sparred, something inside the girl seemed to click off, as if her soul was either turned off or caged away. In its place was a ruthless machine.

Below, Vos remembered something she had said. _They wanted a weapon_. Rather than end the fight, Vos continued to defend himself while reaching with the Force into her mind. He knew the others of the crew sensed something was off, but he did not dare distract himself. Her skills were sufficient to be dangerous even to him if he did not bring most of his abilities to bear.

She arched her back and spun around in a particularly artful combination of sword and foot that, had Vos not back-flipped away from, would easily have removed his head. She sauntered forward with deadly feline grace.

It was at that moment, looking at the way she moved, that he whispered in his own native Basic, "You are beautiful."

The glaze suddenly left her eyes and she came to a sudden stop. In the same language, which her people somehow spoke and called Corlingua, she whispered, "It wasn't me."

She deactivated the lightsaber and let it drop. Vos deactivated his own and hooked it to his belt. He stepped to her and glanced up at her waiting friends. He simply nodded to let them know the danger was past. Seeing the show was over, they broke up and went their own ways.

He looked back down at River. "There is a trigger inside your mind," he said. "It is conditioning, not physical. I can remove it, but it would be painful."

She nodded, and then leaned into him, leaving him little practical choice but to hug her. "Someday you're going to leave me," she whispered. "You're going to go back to your home and the one you love. She's waiting for you. I know it. And I'll be alone."

Vos looked into the far corners of the ship, remembering. "I don't dare hope for it."

"You will see her again," River whispered. She looked up with tears in her eyes. "And you're going to be with her for many years. And I'll only have a few months. It's not fair."

"River…."

She had to jump to accomplish it, but before Vos realized what was happening her arms were around his neck and her lips were on his. Her lithe body pressed against him and he felt intense heat from both their bodies and the Force itself flood into him.

An eternity of three heart beats later, she let go and slid back to her feet. "I want an orange," she suddenly announced with a quizzical expression before she turned and walked away.


	12. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

A/N For reasons I don't understand, this chapter disappeared. Thanks to Ferryboat George for letting me know.

**Chapter Twelve: Guess Who's Coming For Dinner**

The evening before _Serenity_ was to make orbit over Shadow, the captain felt a need to show off his scars to Inara once more.

This had become somewhat of a tradition since Mr. Universe. He would remove his clothes to show her his scars, and she would remove hers in order to better comfort him, and they would have a generally good time. Neither of them mentioned the word love. What they had was too fragile and to precious to risk it.

However, on this particular evening as he arrived at the door of the shuttle she still paid him rent for, her heard two voices. He stepped quietly around the door, and to his surprise he found little River laying with her head in Inara's lap, staring at the Companion's jewelry box.

"I always loved that necklace," River was saying.

Inara was very gently combing the young girl's hair. "It is zhen yu. A gift from Mal. It has meant a lot to me."

"He loves you."

"I know," Inara said.

"You are going to have two boys and a girl," River said. "You'll own a ranch on a beautiful world with waves of green grass, waterfalls like tapestries and a sky so blue it seems that it could not be real."

"That sounds nice," Inara wistfully.

"It will be very nice," River said. "How do I seduce a man?"

Mal fought very hard not to cough and turned to leave when Inara answered. "Seduction can buy you a night," she said, "but love can buy you a lifetime."

"I can't see my lifetime," she said. "I can't even see the coming year. I love him, though. I must love him."

Inara simply continued to comfort River by combing her hair. A moment later, River sat up. "Captain wants to show you his scars," she said without smiling. "His turn."

Mal didn't even try to move. He simply knocked on the door. "Am I interrupting anything?"

Inara opened her mouth to speak, but River shook her head. "No, you were very quiet and did not interrupt. Thank you." She turned and left.

"That is one strange girl," Mal said.

"She carries more pain than all of us," Inara said. "Speaking of, didn't you come to show me something?"

"Why yes, I believe I did." And fun was had by all.

* * *

Shadow was once an outlying agricultural world with a small colony of fiercely independence ranchers. It was, in many aspects, like most of the other worlds in the Independence movement.

After the Battle of San Jin Hill, in which a group of five hundred browncoats held off an army of five thousand Alliance troopers for almost a month, the Alliance subjected the whole planet to orbital bombardment and then left the world for dead.

When _Serenity_ finally made orbit in the afternoon of the fourth day in flight, the crew got their very first look at the cradle of Malcolm Reynold's birth.

"Looks like a giant piece of dung," Jayne said with characteristic tact. "Ain't a spec 'o water on the whole planet. No body could live there."

"You never met my mother," Mal muttered. He sat in the co-pilot's seat across from Wash, while the rest of the crew stood on the command deck behind them. "No point in calling down. They wouldn't answer anyway. Let's just go."

The trip into the atmosphere was bumpy even with grav compensators. Once in the air, the ship was buffeted by high winds that, according to ship's scans, still contained trace radiation.

Mal just shrugged and continued piloting the ship over the barren, cold landscape of Shadow. Finally, they arrived at a line of rocks that at least broke up some of the monotony. "Okay, Wash, we're here," the captain said, releasing the controls. "See that flat spot over there? Put us down there."

"Aye aye, Captain," Wash said. "Putting us down over there. On that flat spot. I'm landing the ship. It's going to land and be real smooth. Yes, siree. A leaf on the wind."

"Honey," Zoe said gently, "shut up."

"Right."

_Serenity_ landed so gently those inside could not even feel the transition from motion to stillness. As the engines whined down, they could all hear the harsh screams of wind blowing through the rocks.

"So when do we go meet mom?" Wash asked.

"After she decides whether to blow us to smithereens or not." He pointed to one of the rocks directly in front of them and they all became aware of the very large barrel pointed at them.

"Is that a…Mal, is that a rail gun?" Wash stammered.

"I believe it is," Mal said. "Picked it up from the hull of a downed Alliance fighter before the bombardment. This is the best place to land, so she keeps it covered."

Their wave screens danced static as an audio-only signal came through. "Who are you and whad'ya want?"

The voice was harsh and barely recognizable as female. Mal's lips twitched with a humorless smile. "It's your prodigal son returning for a feast," Mal answered.

"Only son I got is with me," voice came back. "Others died with the rest of them angels at _Serenity Valley_."

"Must 'a got better, Mom, 'cause it's Mal."

"_Fei hua!_" the woman snapped back. "Mal's dead. And if he ain't, then he damn well should be."

Simon leaned over. "Not quite the happy reunion," he said.

Mal glared bullets. "Mama, this wind finally drive you _fong luh_? Would I park my boat right in front of your very large gun if I weren't your son?"

"Way I see it," the woman snapped back, "only some one who wasn't my son it'd be fool enough to do that."

"She doesn't know you very well any more, does she?" Zoe said.

The audio signal crackled. "Was that Zoe? Zoe Alleyne?"

"It's Washburn now, Kat, but yeah, it's me," Zoe said.

"Married?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"He a good fella?"

"I try," Wash said.

"Better'n Mal's Pa, I reckon," Kat Reynolds said. "All right. Door's to the right of your ship. Come in single-file. If I don't like what I see, I'm gonna kill the whole lot of you."

"Love you too, Mama," Mal said.

"I'll shoot you first you ungrateful little brat," Kat said. "Now get your butts in here."

When the ramp dropped, cold air blasted into the ship. Mal buttoned his brown coat up and led the way across the thirty meters of the landing field to what looked like a metal door bored directly into the granite of a rocky cliff.

Inside the door was a long, narrow hall with a three-inch hole carved out of the ceiling. As they entered, the barrel of an assault rifle poked down. "Came on in and spread out," she said from the hole, still unseen.

"Mama," Mal grunted. "Will you just let us in? It's cold."

"Whose that big fella?"

"Quinlan Vos," the big fella in question answered.

"Why do you got that line on your face?"

"To look pretty," Vos said.

They heard a harsh chuckle and the barrel of the gun pulled up out of sight. A few moments later the far door cracked open and a short, heavy-set woman wearing a dusty collection of old clothes that clung like trash bags stepped in.

She walked straight up to Mal and grabbed both shoulders. "You look more like that sonuvabitch father of yours than ever," she said. She did not hug him, and he did not appear to expect a hug. She then roughly pushed him aside and wrapped Zoe in a very tight hug.

"You, on the other hand, look as beautiful as ever."

"I think so," Wash said.

Kat Reynolds turned dark brown eyes and stripped Wash to the bone with her gaze. "Bit scrawny, ain't he?"

"He makes me laugh," Zoe said.

"With 'em or at 'em."

"Yes," Zoe said.

Kat laughed and turned to lead them out of the narrow tunnel into trolley lift. It was a tight squeeze, but everybody fit in. "Keep your hands in if you wanna keep 'em on," she said. She pulled lever, and the lift dropped abruptly into the rock.

"How's the group?" Mal asked as they dropped.

"Doin' just find," Kat said absently. She pulled the lever back and the lift slowed its descent until they came to an abrupt and painful halt before a stone arch that looked natural. Around a bend of rock came a hint of light.

She led them through a brief maze of stone until they arrived in a massive cavern easily as large as the largest Alliance cruiser. The entire roof of the cavern was covered in omni-spectrum lighting that gave the illusion of natural sunlight. Much of the cavern floor was covered in verdant growing plant life, carefully cultivated into neat rows. Along the rounded edges of the cavern the crew could see metal and stone houses crafted carefully into the cave wall, with a little grassy area that even had a few trees.

Wash whistled. "Wow. No wonder the Alliance couldn't get you."

Kat snorted. "Son, this is what happened after the Alliance got us. We got hurt bad. Had to come down here to find potable water. There are dozens of these caves. Now we're doin' just fine. We got wind mills up in the rocks catching that pleasant breeze of ours. Unlimited energy. We're just fine."

As they cleared the entrance to the cavern they spotted other people, ranging in ages from seniors like Kat to young children. The children especially stared at the newcomers. "So what brings you here, Mal?" Kat said.

"Needed a place to lay low," Mal said.

"Shadow's 'bout as low as you can get," Kat said. She peered sideways at her son. "This ain't about Miranda, is it?"

From the back of the crew, Samhael coughed. "You have wave access?" the former Operative asked.

"We live in a cave, not under a rock," Kat snarled. "We got fifty thousand strong just waitin' for the Alliance to trip up. The Movement's not dead, boys and girls. It's just laying low."

She led them through fields of geneered corn, and wheat, and soy, past pens holding chickens and goats, and toward the first row of houses. A man a little older than Mal was waiting for them.

"It was him, I reckon," the man said.

Mal looked the man over. He wore old, home-spun pants and a shirt, cinched with a span of rope. "Jeb. Thought you were dead."

"Mal. Thought you were too." His bearded face split when he saw Zoe. "Zoe Alleyne, come here, darlin'!"

Zoe exchanged yet another hug. "Jeb, shave that bush off!" she said.

"Never. My wife likes it."

"How is Dayna doing?"

His smile faded. "Radiation poisoning. Went scavenging in Shadow Town. Died few years back. Got me a pretty young thing now." His eyes moved on to Inara. "Course, not as pretty as what my wayward brother brought in, but pretty enough for us 'round here."

The whole bunch looked first at Mal, then Jeb. "What?" Mal muttered. "I have a brother. So what?"

Room was made in one of the three-story houses along the edge of the canyon. Each floor was basically a large room with open plumbing in the corner. The crew split up, four to a room on folding cots. Inara, Kaylee, River and Zoe shared one room, while the men were bedded together separate.

The evening meal consisted of a plain salted porridge mixed with a conservative amount of chicken, with a cup of very strong, home-brewed whiskey.

"This stuff is great," Wash said after a sip and a coughing fit. "You can drink it, and if you have any left over, we can use it to fuel the ship."

That elicited a grunt from Kat and a laugh from Jeb, who slapped Wash on the back so hard he nearly popped a stitch. "Zoe married her a comedian!"

"They live longer than soldiers," Zoe said quietly.

Zeb raised a cup. "I'll toast to that." He looked at Mal. "To soldiers. To Pa, and Dink, and Sam, and Mitty, and Dan, and Wendy Bird. The Reynolds gone to warn God about us!"

"Here here," Mal said, suddenly morose. "Wendy was at Serenity Valley with my unit," he said.

"Got hit by a strafing run early on," Zoe said.

"Our birds never showed up," Mal said, his voice flat, his eyes distant. "War is hell."

"Here here," Quinlan said.

Kat leaned forward and captured the Jedi in another harsh glare. "Which side did you fight for, boy?"

Vos smiled. "The losing one."

"But not the wrong one," Jeb said, misunderstanding. "We lost, but we were in the right."

Vos chose not to respond.

* * *

Night arrived with the flick of a switch. The lights blanketing the ceiling of the cavern went dark, and a new light, silver-white in color, came on. It gave the illusion of a moon-lit night.

Within the hour the whole crew of the _Serenity_ was fast asleep, save Quinlan Vos.

The Jedi stood, and with dexterity that would surprise someone judging him solely by size, he slipped out of the open window of the house and easily climbed onto the flat roof. He sensed only a few people awake, mainly in a security room near the entrance equipped with cameras on the surface.

He sat cross legged, rested his hands on his legs, and centered himself. The discussion of lost family resonated in his mind, and brought images of all those dead Jedi stored in the Academy.

His family. His friends.

Then he thought of _her_. Khaleen Hentz. His love for her throbbed inside him, pulling him. He was willing to quit the Jedi for her. He was willing to die for her. He knew their son was growing within her when last they met. Before Kashyyk.

How long ago was that? That was the frustrating thing. He had no idea how long it had been since the war. Was it mere days, months? Was his son a grown man now? Were they even alive? Try as he might, he could not pierce the veil of darkness that seemed to hang over the system.

The only thing he felt this evening was the bright spark of River Tam slowly climbing up the wall, until she stood next to him. She sat down without saying a word, wearing only a sleeping shirt. The way she sat, with her feet tucked under her, her hands resting on he knees and her large eyes studying him so intently, she reminded him of Aayla. He fought the wave of affection that came with those memories.

"What was her name?" River asked softly, sensing Vos's thoughts.

"Khaleen," he said.

"What was she like?"

"A thief and a spy. A killer and a lover. She was strong when I was weak, and weak when I needed to protect her. She's saved my life, and I hers. I was going to leave the Order for her."

River nodded and stared out over the dimly lit cavern. "What does is feel like, to make love?" she asked.

He turned and looked, but her face was open and her eyes bright. "You should not allow yourself to love me, child," Quinlan said gently. "Even if I were free to do so, it would not be wise."

"A writer of Earth-that-was once said 'We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.'" She took his hand and lifted it to her lips, where she gently kissed his palm. Quin tensed, but for reasons not even he could say, he did not pull his hand away from her.

She looked back up and smiled sadly. "I know I can't have you forever. I know I can't even have you for a while. Our lives are moments broken by time." She pulled herself to her knees, and with a shrug had the sleeping shirt off.

She wore nothing underneath. Her lithe body flexed under the distant silver light, her skin reflected it like an olive-toned mirror. She was so thin, so fragile in her beauty. And yet she moved with all the grace of a Cathar with twice the lethality. In that one moment, as she stared naked at him, she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

"Give me his moment," she said as she lifted his hand to her chest and pulled her lips to his. "Please give me this one moment."


	13. By the Pricking of My Thumbs

**divad relffehs**--Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying.

**Roosterman71**--I'd have a difficult time refusing such an offer as well. Summer Glau, while not typical of Western beauty, is in her own way very stunning. She looks great in the new Terminator TV show.

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen: "By the Pricking of My Thumbs…"**

"Mal, you'd better come see this," Kat said three days after _Serenity_ arrived on Shadow.

The whole crew was actually out in a corn field helping the other residents with their harvest, except for Quinlan and River.

Those two were practicing with their glowing swords to the awe-struck attention of every child in the community. Even Kat, after delivering her message, stopped to stare at those two.

"They don't seem right," she muttered to herself. Just then, Vos vaulted into a fifteen-foot high somersault that left the children _ohing_ and _ahing_ in admiration. "Not natural."

"You have no idea," Mal muttered. He wiped the sweat from his brow and followed his mother out of the field toward the small security room. The others followed, including Quin and River when they saw the movement.

"What's going on?" Mal said as he and the rest arrived. The entire far wall of the room was dominated by a large wave relay connected to a series of receivers on the surface.

Kat flipped a switch on the relay and a five foot wide screen blinked to life with a Cortex signal. The screen was dominated by an attractive young woman with Asian features and naturally blonde hair and green eyes, while behind her was a satellite feed of a fleet of ships larger than anything amassed since the war. "…repeat, the Union of Allied Planets has declared a Class One interplanetary emergency. Hostile forces have destroyed three Rim skyplexes and have evidently occupied the planet New Melbourne and all its moons. The Forces are described as 'Reavers' and have left no one alive in the wake of their passage. Parliamentary spokespeople have stated that the entire Alliance Second Fleet is massing near Boros to begin operations against this savage enemy."

Kat muted the button. Mal felt sick to his stomach. "There were twenty million people on New Melbourne," Wash said.

"Another five on the moons," Samhael added.

"Reavers attack small towns and ships," Mal said. "They don't attack planets. How can they have those kinds of numbers?"

"Maybe the 'Reavers' have changed," River said softly. She stood as always beside the hulking Quinlan. "They were after us on that skyplex. Maybe they've changed."

For once neither Mal nor anyone else had anything to say about it.

Over the next few days, the citizens of that particular cavern set up an impromptu wave receiver with a screen large enough to be seen by the several hundred people living there.

Occasional signals would come in updating the Alliance of the fleets movements.

In the meantime, Wash moved the ship to a more secured and hidden spot accessible by a different exit and the crew helped plant food. River trained with Vos to harness the power of the Force.

On their fifth day there, Simon, who offered his services to the residents, finished giving a little boy a shot of plural inoculations when he saw his sister and Vos training nearby. He watched as enthralled as the rest of the residents as his sister engaged in physical feats of prowess beyond even his description. Objects flew around them of their own accord; they would burst into runs at speeds beyond belief, and then would simply sit and meditate for an hour or more.

But during the whole afternoon, even between patients, Simon had noticed the way River hung close to Vos. He noticed the way her hands seemed to be reaching for him all the time. And, as a young boy walked away rubbing where Simon had given him the shot, Simon saw something that shocked him.

He saw Vos take one of River's reaching hands in his, and gently kiss it.

Simon became very still and narrowed his eyes. Quin and River. The Jedi was such a large, dark and imposing man. It just seemed so unbelievable.

"Disgusting, ain't it?" Jayne said. He stood directly behind the doctor with his thick arms crossed.

Simon spun around with a gasp. "Jayne, please don't sneak up on me."

"I ain't sneaking'," Jayne snarled. "You just weren't paying no attention." He nodded. "Gorram moon-brain got herself a toy."

"You're talking about my sister."

"Yeah." Jayne completely missed the thrust of Simon's comment. "Getting all naked with that guy. Like he's something special, gorram moon-brain."

"You're talking about my sister," Simon said again, louder.

"I'm talking 'bout your sister getting naked with that _huh choo-shang tza-jiao duh tzang-huo_."

Simon rolled his eyes in disgust. "You don't know they're doing any such thing."

Jayne snorted. "And you think you're the smart one, huh?" He shook his head. "Been going at it like monkeys since we got here." He turned on his heel and walked back to the house.

Left alone, Simon turned back and watched the two going through their training.

That night, after a simple but filling evening meal, Simon stood from the table and stretched. "River, would you mind walking with me?" he asked.

River looked over a Vos, who kept his face very still. "Okay." she said. The two left the rest of the crew alone as they walked through the fields. Although it was late afternoon, with the omnipresent lighting it still appeared to be mid-day in the cavern. However, people were relaxing from their day, children were playing, and the atmosphere of the cave was peaceful.

"How have you been holding up?" Simon asked as soon as he was sure they were far enough away from the house. "Any relapses or withdrawal symptoms?"

River shook her head. "No. I feel…" She sighed and her face lit up with wonder. "I feel good. Like before. I know who I am. I know what I can do. And when things get confused, Quin's there to help me."

"You like him a great deal."

She nodded absently and pulled at a tuft of grass that had lodged itself in the soil of the cave in a small tree-lined park across from the fields. Even with subsistence farming, the people of Shadow needed a semblance of nature to retreat to.

"Have you slept with him?" he asked.

"No," River said. "We've just had sex. No sleeping."

Simon suddenly found himself gagging and doubled over coughing. He felt her hand on his back and suddenly stood up as a wave of warmth washed through his chest, easing the choking. He took a deep breath, and when he finally collected himself, said, "River, he's so much older than you."

"Did you know he's actually forty?"

Simon admitted his surprise. "Scars aside, he doesn't look a year past 30."

"His race don't age as fast as mainline humans," River said.

Simon fought back another urge to start coughing. "His race?"

"He's a near-human called a Kiffar," River said, her eyes sparkling with fascination. "Civilization in the galaxy is so old, Simon, that humans have actually divided into dozens and dozens of subspecies. He said he could easily live to be two hundred." She smiled. "So, when you look at it like that he's actually my age, in Kiffar years."

"River, you're sleeping with an alien twice your age," Simon said. "Do you know what the others will say?"

She stood and studied her brother intently, and under that dark, knowing glance, Simon finally realized how incredibly different she was than the frightened, disturbed girl he saved from the Academy. It was as if this River were the realization of all the potential she showed as a child, before the Academy took it all from her.

She very gently took his cheeks in her hands, pulled his head down, and kissed his brows just as their mother did when they were very young. "I love you, Simon," she said. "You saved my life. And I will always thank you for that. But Quin…" She turned and looked back at the house. Quin stood there, watching them from a distance. "Quin saved my soul, Simon. I love him." Her eyes took on a liquid sparkle that he realized were tears. "I know I won't be able to keep him long. But while I have him, I will love him as much as I can." She looked back to her brother. "Please don't try to stop that. Don't judge. Be happy that I found happiness, even if only for a little while, before the darkness comes."

She spun away from him so quickly he didn't realize she was gone until she was already halfway back to her lover. Simon stood stunned, staring after her. Finally, to himself and the air around him, he said, "I love you too, River."

When the announcement came that the Alliance Second Fleet had arrived at New Melbourne, people left off their daily work and gathered around to watch.

Mal and his crew stood near the back with the others, but the screen was large enough and high enough that none had trouble seeing. The wave was being sent real-time by subspace from the Cortex Interplanetary News. The CIN reporter was another young woman, again ridiculously attractive, with her vidman. They reported from the bridge of the I.A.V. _Dortmunder_. On tactical screens spread across the bridge of the massive carrier ship they could see the hundred other assembled ships of the Alliance fleet, including several other equally large carriers, gun boats, cruisers, assault ships and corvettes. It made the fleet gathered at Mr. Universe's planet look miniscule in comparison.

"We are just now coming into visual range of the first enemy vessels," the reporter announced. "We are going to switch to external sensors."

The whole screen blinked and showed the glowing blue surface of the ocean-planet New Melbourne. In orbit around the planet was a massive fleet of ships unlike anything any of them had seen. The reporter verified that herself. "The ships are of an unknown design," she said. "Alliance officials tell me that traditionally Reavers used older model ships. However, these ships are completely alien to anything we've seen before. Initial scans do not indicate any metal at all. However, from the brief reports we received from the surface of New Melbourne before all contact was lost, the attackers were definitely Reavers. Wait, we are approaching weapons range."

Mal felt a nudge and turned to see Inara sidling next to him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders without hesitation. He noticed other couples throughout the crowd doing the same. He glanced behind his shoulder, and saw with a shock that Vos was holding River too, and that the young woman was nearly trembling with wide eyes.

Mal turned and stepped toward her. "_Mei-mei_," he whispered. "What's wrong?"

The others in the crew leaned forward. But she looked at Book. "Do you remember what I told you? Before we found Quin?"

Book raised a brow at the use of the more familiar name, but nodded. "Is that what's happening?"

River pointed at the alien ships on the screen. "They are going to destroy us all. I was made into a weapon to try and fight them."

"The enemy ships have opened fire!" the reporter announced. "Officials are telling me the weapons fire is some type of plasma ball, almost like super-heated silica. And they are….oh my God."

The IAV _Magellan_ exploded. The whole ship with thousands of crew and soldiers died under a barrage of the strangely glowing balls of destruction shot not just from the largest of the strange Reaver ships, but also from a swarm of smaller ones that zipped effortlessly among the Alliance ships.

"All fighters have been launched. The Alliance fleet is returning fire with missiles, rail guns and directed energy weapons but with little effect. Oh no, another ship has been lost! And…The captain has just informed me that the _Dortmunder_ is now under fire as well. We are attempting to evade the fire, but you can feel the decks shaking. It looks like we've…."

The scene from the ship's sensors showed a swarm of bumpy, tear-drop shaped fighters swarming forward, spitting out balls of fire from strange protuberances in their noses. The balls seemed to fly directly toward the sensors, and a moment later, the screen went blank.

A full minute later, it blinked back to an image of the same shaken young woman with Asian features and blonde hair who first reported the story. "We will provide more details as soon as they are available," she said. She then began the slow, lingering babble of news people with nothing to report.


	14. A Touch of Darkness

I really appreciate all the reviews and feedback!

**Notorious JMG**--The Real Imperial March scene comes near the end. I hope you stick around till then!!

**divad relffehs**--I'm not an expert on the Vong, but I understand they undertook a multitude of scouting missions throughout the galaxy. What we're witnessing is just a small part of the Praetorite Vong. So imagine a scouting mission of Vong running across the Reavers of Miranda, and discovering a primitive solar system filled with billions of humans just ripe for the picking. Your second point goes directly to the first, and also the reason why the Emperor had his fingers in it.

**bladefax**--I'm glad this is working for you. Thanks for the review and for reading!

**BlueEyedBrigadier**--Thank you. The Reavers have actually come to worship the Vong. Not surprising, when you think about it. The tall, scary leader of the Reavers in the skyplex was Vong. Thanks for reading!

**Roosterman71**--Stop playing smart, you know you PM'd me first ;) Really, thank you for reading. I appreciate it.

Thank you all again for reading and for the reviews!

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen: A Touch of Darkness**

An object floated on the edge of the black, itself a shadow in the depths of dark space. Even the yellow giant sun that gave life to the countless worlds and moons of the Alliance was too far away to light the derelict's path.

There should have been no life. The ship was ripped apart, as if a giant claw had pulled the cockpit open like a prey animal. Which was an accurate description of what the Reavers had done when they encountered it.

The ship was not Alliance in build. Rather, it had two slanted wings protruding down and away from a flat, squared hull. The top of the ship held a third panel, albeit a stunted one. Of course, one of the wings had been ripped clean away with the hull that housed it, exposing the cramped interior of the ship.

There should have been no life. But there was. A lone man floated in the midst of the wreckage, his EV suit jury-rigged to the ship's life support system. When the Reavers took what they wanted and left the ship spinning wildly in the void, believing the shuttle empty when they could not find him, the man had pulled himself more by force of will than by force of muscle back into the shuttle where he manually released jets of air from the still fully-functional life support system. The effect was slow, but he had no where to go. Eventually, momentum slowed so that the nausea and vertigo eased, and eventually he brought the ship to a stable path through the black.

By the time that happened his own suit had depleted most of its air reserves; hence the jury-rigged tether. Connected to life support and power, his suit could go on as long as the battery cells of the shuttle.

The only water, however, was the reclamation packs in the suit. There was no food.

He initiated the emergency beacon as soon as he brought the ship's spin under control, and now all he could do was wait, and hope.

He waited for five days without food, floating in the black, sipping stale water extracted from his own urine, when finally a ship came.

It appeared to be an alliance battle cruiser, streamlined and sleek in appearance and purpose. The man had plenty of time to watch it approach as it did so at a mere fraction of light speed. As it grew closer, he watched as it fired retro-thrusters to slow itself down, and open a large hatch in the bulbous nose of the craft. The nose blazed with the Blue Sun logo.

Rather than a tether or a tractor beam, the ship used its own weak gravitation pull to bring the damaged shuttle in, adjusting its own course to match the slow pull of the damaged ship.

The man could not help the tears that sprang to his eyes in sheer relief. The light from the hangar at once burned and beckoned. He braced himself as the shuttle came into the artificial gravity of the cruiser and he suddenly dropped to the floor of his old ship, too weak to stand on his own after five days of weightlessness and hunger.

Immediately medics came to his aid, pulling off his helmet so he could gasp at the clean air. The tether had provided fresh air, but could not filter out the smells of a man trapped in the same suit for five days.

As the medics worked their magic by injecting him with a calcifying agent to undo the damage to his skeletal structure caused by the weightlessness, the man watched as another figure approached.

The newcomer was young, perhaps twenty, with blond hair and deep blue eyes. He was unusually short for a man, but with a solid, compact build and a pleasant balance to his features. He walked with his hands behind his back, but if he could have seen them, the rescued man would have known they would be covered with black gloves.

"Car'das," the newcomer said. "I'm glad to see you survived."

"Thank you, Cain." Jorj Car'das said weakly. He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Two ships in as many months."

Cain laughed without humor, a disconcerting sound coming from such a young, handsome man. "Interesting times, my friend." He waited until the medics were done, then with a gesture levitated Car'das from the wreckage of the _Kappa_-class shuttle with the Force.

The medics and Alliance techs gaped open-mouthed, but quickly schooled their expressions and said nothing.

"So," Cain said jovially when Car'das was firmly planted on the hangar deck, "why don't you tell me how you lost our pet Jedi? An Alliance Operative may have found Kinman's body and the transport shuttle. He destroyed all evidence to keep us from finding out, as if that were possible. But somehow you escaped."

"The Reavers attacked while our ships were docked," Car'das said. "I managed to go EV and hide outside while Kinman took the cargo and fled in his ship. They ripped my ship apart and then chased after him."

"The Reaver problem has become more worrisome," Cain said. "They have attacked and taken New Melbourne, and a few days ago wiped out the Second Fleet. Our employer has become concerned that Parliament has lost control of the situation."

"No doubt," Car'das said quietly. "And speaking of lost persons, what of that problem of yours that also worries our Master?"

All hint of joviality left the young man's face as hints of orange burned at the blue in his eyes. "We will find River. I've sent the best contractors Blue Sun has. They will find her."

Car'das nodded. "What is our next course of action, then?"

"Punishment," Cain said, suddenly smiling again. "You lost our Jedi, and because of him we lost nearly our entire store of genetic materiel. I've been told such materiel is becoming exceedingly rare. Therefore, there must be punishment."

Faster than Car'das could follow, Cain struck out, a red lightsaber blade erupting from the cylinder that was suddenly in his hand. The blade struck faster than Car'das could believe.

The young female crewmember of the Blue Sun-owned and operated battle cruiser stared up at Cain with a gaping mouth as the upper half of her chest, shoulders and head slid away from the rest of her body.

Cain looked back to Car'das, again smiling without humor. "I didn't say who had to be punished, only that there had to be punishment."

Jorj fought to keep his face straight as he looked into a young man with all the power of the Sith, but with a mind easily as unbalanced as River Tam was at her worst. "Indeed," he managed to whisper. He forced himself to swallow. "And now that's out of the way?"

"You give me the Emperor's Hand's tag code," Cain said, "and we go fetch our property."

Patience sat astride her horse on the edge of a mesa on the moon Whitefall, most of which she owned, watching as the terrestrial giant called Athens hovered on the horizon. The dust in the air caused a golden hue around the setting planet, which itself was a wide array of colors from deepest blue to barren brown.

It was not the planet she watched, though. Through the high-rez, Satellite-fed telescope in her hands, she watched a battle being fought over Athens.

One of the many Alliance ships that Patience watched was the IAF _Vigilance_. Although it was many hundreds of kilometers from the surface, Athens was so large it gave an impression of the massive ship being much closer than it really was.

The captain of the _Vigilance_ and the senior officer of the taskforce was a man named Xiang Li Campanelli. He commanded a taskforce of two carriers and five heavy cruisers with perhaps twenty smaller gunships and five squadrons of fighters

Campanelli saw the approaching Reaver fleet well in advance. Their defense beacons had warned that the Athens system was going to be the next target. Campanelli's orders were to engage the enemy and save the population at any cost.

As the motley assortment of ships came into weapons range, the captain raised his voice over the whole bridge. "Launch missiles," the captain ordered loudly. "Launch torpedoes, all tubes. Target the incoming vessels and continue firing until ordinance is depleted or until all targets are destroyed. Open fire with rail and energy weapons as soon as surviving targets are in range."

Modern warfare was warfare at a distance. Missiles began pouring out of the _Vigilance_ and the other ships of the taskforce while the enemy vessels were still several thousand kilometers away and started accelerating through the void.

The fleet approaching Campanelli's taskforce was of a different composition than that which attacked and conquered New Melbourne. However, they were still Reavers, and Reavers did not practice modern warfare. They did not practice warfare at all. They practiced rape. It was not just a crime they perpetrated; it was the life they led. Their fleet of fifty or so ships ranging in size from individual fighters to converted transports almost as large as the _Vigilance_ broke formation as the first wave of missiles approached. The missiles were programmed to target gravity drive and standard engine emissions.

The Reaver ships trailed thick contrails of such emissions from purposely neglected or misaligned drive systems, and these emissions threw the Alliance missiles and torpedoes into disarray. One or two found a target, and those targets exploded with sufficient energy to ensure they would harm no one else, but the vast majority of the missiles exploded without striking their targets.

When they came into range, the _Vigilance_ and its sister ship _Persistence_ opened fire with heavy rail guns, microwave beams and laser cannons. It was an impressive array of fire-power and at least ten of the Reaver ships died as a result. One of those ten was a transport almost a third the size of the Alliance heavy cruiser. An invisible microwave beam struck the command deck of the Reaver ship, killing everyone on it instantly and obliterating the five corpses tired in Xs across its bow.

Unfortunately, the Reaver ship continued on its original course directly toward one of the four towers of the _Persistence_. It struck with shattering energy, collapsing into the heavier frame of the carrier-ship before the fusion drive exploded with nuclear fury. The whole Alliance ship shuddered with its death throes.

"My God," Campanelli whispered. "All forces continue firing at will."

"Captain," the tactical station called, "new contacts have appeared."

"From where?"

"I don't know sir; they just appeared out of nowhere."

Campanelli ran across the wide command deck to one of the narrow port windows. Through the three-foot thick transparent carbon alloy he saw from behind the now greatly diminished Reaver fleet one massive, beetle-shaped craft of hideous appearance. It was covered in bumps and vanes almost like a diseased insect. As soon as it appeared a swarm of small, equally disgusting fighters blossomed out from behind it.

"The Reaver attack is dissipating," the tactical officer called from behind Campanelli. "We've about finished them off. New combatants are on an attack vector."

Through the window the Alliance captain saw the huge ship belch out what looked like a ball of fire. The ball ripped through space with the speed of the fastest missile and struck a heavy cruiser. The cruiser folded in on itself as its keel snapped. The following explosion blinded the captain momentarily. "Order all ships to direct all fire at the new enemy target. All weapons, continuous fire."

"Aye, Captain," Tactical said.

Missiles, torpedoes, lasers, x-ray beams, EM pulse guns and rail guns erupted throughout the Alliance fleet, all directed at this new enemy. The directed energy weapons seemed to disappear before even touching the ships. Missiles and rail guns sometimes broke through to shatter and break off like brittle pieces of a clam's shell, but still it continued firing its balls of plasma.

"Sir, fighters have engaged the enemy fighter vessels. Five enemy ships destroyed."

"And our casualties?" the captain asked.

"Approaching eighty percent, sir."

Campanelli closed his eyes and stepped down from the window into the command deck where he belonged. "No help for it. Continue to concentrate all fire on the large ship. Is it showing any sign of weakening?"

"Yes, sir. It's firing rate has slowed. However…" The whole bridge flashed red. Tactical gasped. "Incoming fire from the enemy vessel. Brace for…"

He never finished the sentence. The bridge of the ship was located in the center of a platform from which the four towers rose. The plasma ball shot by the enemy ship soared easily between the four towers of the _Vigilance_ directly into the bridge. The destructive energy of the blast continued through the rest of the platform to rip through to the landing pad on the bottom of the Alliance cruiser.

A moment later, another plasma ball struck sixty meters to the left of the first. Fatally weakened, the superstructure of the carrier ship collapsed in on itself and exploded. By then, the Alliance fighters were dead. The remaining heavy cruiser continued firing on the strange Reaver. Eventually, it activated its gravity drive and attempted a suicide run, but the enemy plasma fire was too powerful. Mass and momentum gave way to sheer destructive power and the cruiser exploded before coming within half a kilometer of the enemy vessel.

The gunships fell even more quickly. Those that attempted to retreat were hunted down, and in the space of a twenty minute battle the Alliance taskforce was obliterated without a single survivor.

On Whitefall, Patience dropped her satellite-enhanced telescope and shook her head. She turned to her latest foreman and clicked her tongue. "Got a speck o' trouble coming."

"'Spect so," the foreman said. "So what do you wanna do, boss?"

"Same thing I always do," Patience said. "Shoot the bastards."

Two days later, Patience, the foreman, and the two hundred thousand other souls on Whitefall were either dead, or wished they were.


	15. The Fruit of Knowledge

**Dude**--Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

**divad relffehs**--That would indeed be fun. Sadly, the best they could hope for was a Venator or possible an Imperial I.

**JoSG1fan**--Thank you very much, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

**Roosterman71**--Yep, like from OutBount Flight. His presence is part of the mystery. Cain is a bad guy. Patience rocks, too bad she's Vong food. I'm glad that part worked for you!

I'd like to thank you for reading and reviewing. The last few chapter reviews have been a refreshing change after 6 chapters of no reviews. Thank you all!

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen: The Fruit of Knowledge**

Inara and Mal walked side-by-side. They did not need to hold hands; their bodies touched with almost every step. It was their eighth week in the cavern.

Mal had never had a vacation. It was a foreign term to him. First a farmer, then a soldier, then a freighter captain. The only long periods of inactivity in his life were spent on his ship, in the black, or as a soldier, waiting for the next battle.

The two months had been a real vacation.

That's not to say he and his crewmates didn't work. The Shadow cavern, called Eden by its residents, was a true commune. You didn't work, you didn't eat. Fortunately the _Serenity_ crew were not unaccustomed to work, and on any given day either Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Book, Afolabi, or even their Jedi, were in the fields helping plant or harvest, or helping with any other chores that needed to be done.

The one exception was Simon, whose skills as Doctor were quickly put to good use among the population of the cavern.

However, there were always a few hours of free time every day, and Mal found himself spending that free time with Inara.

The Captain was still nonplussed about the Companion. While she had not taken any clients since Miranda, he knew that was always a possibility. The thought at once enraged and terrified him, and he simply didn't know how to handle it.

"Stop thinking, Mal," she said. She always did that. With that hint of a smile, she seemed to be able to look into him during their quiet moments. He could frustrate her so easily, and she him. But in those quiet moments, like now, she knew him better than he knew himself.

They reached their destination and sat down on a patch of thick grass on a hillock within the cave overlooking both houses and fields. If not for the walls, it could be a hillside bordering any of the border world towns.

Large groups of the town's inhabitants still clumped around the large wave screen for bits of news about the Reaver rampage. Mal himself understood and shared the concern, but there was little he could do about it at the moment. Instead, he placed an arm around her shoulders, and simply sat.

"River's sleeping with Quin," Inara said when they had shared a few moments of luxurious silence.

Mal looked over at her. "Is that so? Why does that vision make my heard hurt?"

"Kaylee's thrilled," Inara said. "She said Simon was taking it rather well. Sort of." She peered over at him. "You're not upset."

"I told her not on my boat. They're not on my boat." He shrugged. "She's eighteen. He's…whatever he is. 'Verse is falling apart around us. Might as well get love where you can."

Inara leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I'm surprised, Mal."

"Course, he touches her on my boat, I'm throwing them both out an airlock."

Inara laughed. The sound was like water running through rocks. Like wind through crystal chimes. He looked at her and his mind swirled in poetry. His heart soared. His mouth opened and he said, "You're purty."

"I love you too, Mal," she said with a gentle smile, as if she could see the art in his head and ignore the dribble from his mouth.

Then Jayne was there. Jayne was always there when he wasn't wanted. He just stood there, staring at the two in open disgust. He shook his head, threw his arms up, and said, "Everybody on the gorram ship's getting sexed up but me!"

He turned and stalked away before Mal could shoot him.

When others got sexed and he didn't, Jayne got irritated. It wasn't fair that Simon and Mal had the two prettiest girls in the ship, and that Quin fellow had… Jayne stopped. Contrary to popular belief and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Jayne was capable of profoundly deep thought. However, it just so happened that when his brain kicked into overdrive, everything else stopped.

So, ignoring the odd looks from the cavern's inhabitants as they continued to and from their work, Jayne stood frozen in the middle of the path engrossed in thought. It was a thought he would never had admitted to anyone alive, not even his own mother.

Jayne liked River.

He even…well, he _really_ liked River. More than he would have imagined possible. The fact that she seemed to put him in the infirmary all the time really didn't matter. In a way, it even made her even more attractive. Jayne suddenly had a flashback to when she went nuts back on Beaumonde when they were meeting the twins. The way she moved, the lethal grace of her kicks and the way she could swing her whole body, pulled at him with animalistic desire.

As realization struck, Jayne forced his eyes up from the path and saw the two of _them_ fighting with their laser swords: River and Quinlan Vos. She was smiling with joy, laughing as she flew over the tall man's head with impossible speed and power. That gorram Operative was there too; good guy or not Jayne didn't trust him any more than he trusted Vos.

Jayne liked the one girl he could never have.

His bad mood turned homicidally black. He stalked down the path toward the quarters the crew shared, muttering curses to himself. If a naked woman dropped into his path demanding his attention, he would have walked right around her, he was so mad. Well, probably, anyway. Maybe.

He continued walking through the open door (why close the door when there weren't no weather to keep out, he thought) and walked grumbling up the stairs to the men's room and stepped into a sight he most certainly did not expect to see.

Shepherd Book sat on his knees, his head bowed, before what looked like some fancy type of hologram of the same creepy old man that scared River so bad back on Osiris. "Prepare the girl for delivery, my Hand," the grizzled old voice said in Corlingua. "It is my command."

Book bowed to the image and said, "Yes, my master."

The hologram blinked out and only then did Book notice his company. "Jayne," he said casually, right before Jayne flew across three steps and threw a right hook that sent the preacher flying across the room.

"You gorram traitor!" Jayne yelled.

Book slammed against the wall, then with surprising speed shot back to his feet. Jayne brought his foot up in a round-house kick that should have taken the preacher right off his feet. His jaw fell open when Book caught the powerful kick in the crook of his arms. "That's enough of that, young man," the shepherd said firmly. He snapped his foot up between Jayne's legs and the mercenary dropped with a groan.

A second later Quinlan Vos flew through the open, second-story window with one of his sabers ablaze. A second after that River flew through another window, her own saber glowing bright in the dimly lit room.

"What's going on here?" Vos demanded. They could hear the sound of footsteps as the rest of the gang rushed up the steps as well, with Mal in the lead.

"What in the name of _shu ma nyaow_ is going on here?" the captain demanded.

"Ask that traitor preacher," Jayne said. His voice cracked as he held himself without any conscious thought for how it looked to everyone else.

"Shepherd?" Mal asked.

"He attacked me," Book said innocently.

"'Cause I saw you talking to that old monkey-lookin' _hwon dahn_ from Osiris! The one scared River so mighty."

River locked her eyes on Book but did not shift from her battle-ready stance. "You knew," she said. "You knew what Quin was the moment you saw him."

Quinlan for his part took a step back and deactivated his saber. His dark eyes scoured the floor until he found the fist-sized black device. He opened the fingers of his right hand and the device flew to them. "Why would a preacher from a primitive society such as this have a state-of-the-art holovid communicator?"

Book drew himself and slowly turned to stare at each one of them. Finally, he said, "Okay, you caught me. I'm one of the bad guys."

Mal stuttered, looked at Inara as if somehow she could provide independent confirmation, and then summed up the moment with a single sound: "Huh."

"So, what's it gonna be?" Book asked after they tied him to a wooden chair with hemp rope. "Beatings? Tooth-pullings? Gonna cut me with your light saber, Master Vos?"

"I was thinking talk is all," Mal said. "Traitor or no, you've bled for me. I don't take that lightly. 'Course, you want those things, I bet we could figure something out."

"Who are you?" Quilan Vos demanded abruptly.

"Derrial Book, confirmed Shepherd of the Blue Catholic Church."

Vos almost smiled. "What were you before that?"

"Derrial Book, ExGal 13 Xeno-anthropologist."

"What now?" Jayne grunted.

"He's a researcher from the Galactic Republic," Vos said. "Was this system your assignment?"

"It was," Book said. He sighed at the memory. "I've studied it for thirty years, since we first made contact with the Anglo and Sino coalitions. Senator Palpatine thought it might be useful for us to guide the primitives here to higher level of technology and society. Then Chancellor Palpatine insisted on it. The first step of that was unification."

"Whoa now!" Mal said. He looked at Quin. "You mean to tell me Book is one of you gorram aliens?"

"He is," Vos confirmed. To Book he said: "You said the first step was unification?"

"The civil war," Book said.

"And then social engineering," River continued for Book. "Corlingua. The language of the Core. It's Republic Basic."

"Wouldn't be much use to the rest of the galaxy if you couldn't speak a civilized language," Book said bluntly. His face was impassive, but his eyes glistened.

"So you've been studying them this entire time? Studying us?" Afolabi said. "That's why you've been able to obtain medical assistance from Alliance cruisers even after you ran off with this crew."

"My security ranking was higher than yours," Book said to the former Operative. "But I stopped actively studying you for the Republic when the Clone Wars started."

Vos stood near the shepherd, imposing not only with his height, but with the fearsome power that seemed to ooze from him like musk. "Explain."

"I received news of the wars, and the Jedi fighting in the middle of it. I realized what was happening, and why the Chancellor sent such a large force of Social Engineers out to this little slice of the Unknown Territories. I believe he wanted to use the people here for cannon fodder for the wars. Imagine, Master Jedi, a single super-massive solar system with hundreds of worlds and moons and a purely human, possibly even base-line human population. The people around you are pure descendents of the original human stock. You are their descendent, in a way. And there are billions of them. Over thirty billion humans, just waiting to be unleashed on the galaxy. Can you imagine?"

"So what did you do?" Inara asked.

"I tried to resign," Book said. "The Chancellor not only refused my resignation, but told me I'd be killed if I tried again. So instead I entered a monastery, and became a shepherd. I sought comfort in faith, since I lost all comfort in the world."

"Is this Chancellor fella behind the Reavers?" Zoe said.

Book shook his head. "I don't think so. He's put too much work into trying to get the Alliance on a level to join his new little Empire to risk blowing them all away. No, I think the Emperor's afraid of what's happening with the Reavers. That's why he's so determined to get River."

He looked at her, and she looked right back. "Why me?"

"The Emperor is Sith," Book said. "Master Vos knows what that means, but none of you do. It is a religion of sorts, but a dark one. And there can only be two-the master, and the apprentice. I understand he has a new apprentice now. But even he knows that isn't enough to rule the galaxy. So he's seeking out Dark Jedi. And where he cannot find them…"

"He makes them," Vos said.

"Yes."

"How many?"

"I left before that project came into fruition," Book said. "I know however that it was one of the reasons behind _Outbound Flight_. The Emperor knew the project was doomed, but with so many Jedi on board it would provide a fine source of Jedi genetic material."

Mal popped the knuckles in his hands slowly. "So, Book, that brings us back to the question of what you were doing talking to that Chancellor or Emperor or whatever the _hwon dahn_ calls himself."

"He called me, Mal," Book said. "I have a tracer in my neck, just under the skin. If I remove it, it will be a death sentence. Once the local Alliance operatives had that frequency, it was just a matter of scanning. The Alliance is going to be here in a matter of hours. I'm sorry."

Vos stepped quickly to Book's side and held a hand over the other man's neck until he nodded. "It's there. I can feel it." Book suddenly grimaced as the tiny device ripped through his skin and into the Jedi's hand. "They track this?"

"They do," Book said as blood ran down his neck and over his shepherd's collar.

Mal nodded immediately. "I know what your thinking, Vos. Give it here!"

They exchanged the tracker and Mal ran out of the room. When the captain was gone, River moved to Book's side and knelt down. "Where you really going to give me to the Operatives?"

"Give them?" Book said. The glistening in his eyes turned to open moisture. "No, child. I was going to die. They're not just coming to take you, but to kill us. All of us, myself included. Palpatine didn't say as much, but he didn't have to. I betrayed him when I found my faith. No one betrays a Sith Lord and lives."

River stood and looked slowly around the room, then back at Book. "I believe you."

"Ma!" Mal called as he sprinted out of the room.

Kat Reynolds sat with a gathering crowd around the screen as the Cortex showed another fleet of Alliance ships getting blasted out of the sky by the strange Reaver ships. She stood and pointed toward the screen. "Don't that just beat all, Mal?" she said.

He barely glanced at the screen. Instead he held up a bloody chip. "Gotta a problem, Ma. Tracker. We brought it in with the Shepherd. You gotta way to move it fast and a place to move it to?"

Kat Reynalds forgot all about the Reavers. "You brought a gorram traitor into this cave, Malcolm Reynolds?"

That statement brought every pair of eyes in the cave square on him. "Didn't do it purposeful or such," he said quickly. "Look, Ma. Tracker. Here. Us. Here. Wanna move one or the other away from here. You pick."

She grabbed the tiny chip from his hands with a huff. "If your father weren't dead he'd a whipped your hide off, boy," she muttered.

"If my Pa were alive we wouldn't be living in a cave," Mal shot back.

"Maybe so," she conceded.

As they started walking toward the back of the cavern, a loud, blaring claxon went off. Every person there froze and looked up. "I take it that's bad," Mal said.

"Might be at that," his mother agreed. "Someone's broke the door down."


	16. Expulsion

**Notorious JMG**--I will say for the record that Book was never a willing accomplice of the Emperor. He was sort of dragged kicking and screaming. Thanks for the review!!

**jcap1526**--He is, but not a willing one. And Jayne really is the living butt-end of a joke, even though once in a rare while he'll show he's a lot smarter than he looks. Not ethical, maybe, but smarter. I'm glad it's all coming together for you!

**Roosterman71**--Okay, tell me how you really feel ;). Thank you for the kind words. I appreciate you reading.

**dude**--Thank you, I'm glad that twist worked for you. I have to admit I was pretty pleased with it myself.

* * *

**Chapter Sixteen: Expulsion**

"That's a lot 'o trouble if I do say so," Jeb Reynolds said as he, Mal and their mother looked at the security cams. The front door was a slagged scrap of metal. The rail gun defense was blown up from the air and what was parked in front of the main cavern entrance was nothing less than a troop transport.

"Looks like they're smart enough not to try the tunnel," Kat said. She pointed to the large weapons the troops were setting up just outside the destroyed door. All wore heavy, full-body armor to shield against the radiation-laced winds of Shadow.

They all heard the first thud reverberate down the lift tube. "We got explosives and booby traps, but they'll get through," Jeb said. "Ma, might be time to move on."

She looked up at Mal with narrowed eyes. "I reckon it is. But you, boy, and your ilk are not coming. You just cost us our homes."

Mal knew better than to argue. "All right, Ma. Me and mine'll be on our way."

"And take that traitor, whoever he is, with you."

"T'was the Shepherd," Mal said. "But it's all of us they're after. We'll be gone."

"Jeb, show your brother the supplies. I'll get the folks to moving."

"Supplies?"

"Food, mostly," Jeb said. "Blood is blood. We'll do what we can for you. We just can't risk everyone."

"I know, Jeb. Let's go."

Mal was expecting wide-spread panic. Instead he saw people hurriedly going about their business with grim, determined faces. As his brother showed him the food supplies and other odds and ends for _Serenity_, he felt a touch of pride in his people. This was the heart of the Resistance that allowed a few rim worlds with hardly any industrial base to hold the Alliance at bay for so many years. They had lost, but they were never defeated.

The booming suddenly got louder. "That was one of ours," Jeb noted.

They were loading up a low train of linked cars at the end of the cavern at the mouth of one of the escape tunnels. The other tunnel was bustling with the people in the cavern driving similar cars or often riding foot-powered bicycles or tricycles with carts filled with belongings, food, and kids. The goats had already been herded in.

"Will you make it?" Mal asked. He noticed Zoe, Jayne, Vos and the others of his crew approaching the train.

"We'll make it," Jeb said.

Just then Kat Reynolds arrived. "That last booby trap'll make 'em slow down a bit, but there's nothing left. When they come through, that's it. We're gonna blow the dome and all the tunnels." She held up a palm-sized disc with a single red button. "Already got it rigged to go."

"It'd take a lot more of the bastards out, though, if they got a good ways in before we blew it," Jeb said.

Both were looking at Mal. "They can take our love," the youngest Reynolds said. "They can take our land."

"They can't take the sky from me," Kat finished. "You remember that song, boy. Just like I taught. Now you do this too, just like Pa taught you. Let's show those _gou tsao de fwoon dahn _why they had to nuke Shadow from orbit."

"Go on now," Mal told his family. "I'll take care of it."

Jeb slapped his shoulder. Kat slapped his cheek, albeit gently. "You take care of that pretty woman of yours. And don't come back here 'less you're bringing me grandbabies!"

Just as she left, Inara and the rest joined him. "What was that about?" she asked when she saw the captain's bright red face.

"Err, nothin'," Mal lied. "We're going to blow the dome as soon as soldiers come crashing in."

"Which should be any moment," Wash noted. He walked to the steering wheel of the car train. "We might as well get ready to go."

"Tracker in place?" Mal asked.

"Yes," Vos said. They watched as River and Afolabi escorted Book to one of the cars. The discussion on whether to take the Shepherd or not had been a long one. It was finally Vos and River that convinced them that Book was as much a victim as they were. And, as Mal said, "He's bled for us."

They just finished loading their supplies and personnel when a cloud of dust and smoke came billowing out of the main entrance on the other side of the gently curving cavern. From the cloud came Alliance soldiers, weapons firing. Mal stood there in his brown coat while the others waited behind him, as more and more soldiers poured in. They spotted him quickly and ran in an intercept course as still more of their companions joined them.

Mal slowly raised the hand with the remote. The soldiers slowed as they came closer and saw his motion, and the reflective glint of metal in his hand. "I was gonna say something profound and witty-like," Mal yelled out at the soldiers. "But I realized I was talking to Alliance. You ain't worth the effort!" He pushed the button.

The roof of the dome exploded. Rocks the size of houses didn't just fell, but were ejected like bullets toward the cavern floor. Mal turned and dove in a flat run onto the last car even as Wash gunned the engine and tore off down the cavern.

Behind them, the tunnel was lost in shadow as additional explosions obliterated the cavern. "That was refreshing!" Mal said.

The sound of splitting rock pierced the tunnel even over the now retreating thunder of explosions. "That's not so refreshing," Wash said from the front of the train. "The tunnel walls are cracking!"

"It'll hold," Vos said.

"Is that the Force talking?" Book asked.

"No," the Jedi said.

The only light in the tunnel was provided by the car train's running lights, but those were enough. When after half an hour they reached the end of the tunnel, all sound of cracking rock or explosions had receded.

"Wash," Mal said as they stopped to open the outer doors. "Let's drive the whole train into the hangar. We can sell 'em next stop if we have to."

The two men walked to the door when suddenly a slim shadow slipped between them. River stalked to the door and gently put her ear against it, lifting her left foot off the ground as she leaned over to listen.

The rest of them congregated to the front as well. "What's she doing?" Jayne muttered.

"She's trying to detect the trap on the other side of the door," Vos said calmly.

Everyone turned to stare. The Jedi shrugged. "You thought they'd attack without tracing out other likely exits?"

"I sense twenty soldiers," River said. "And something else." She backed away from the door and shook her head. "Dark."

Vos stepped around the others until he was by her side. He held his hand to the door and closed his eyes. "I sense a Force presence," he said at last. "One strong in the Dark Side."

"So what do we do?" Wash asked.

"There's only one thing we can do," Mal said. "Ain't no goin' back. That leaves only one way." He pulled his pistols. Zoe and Jayne also prepared their weapons.

"If I may make a suggestion?" Book said from where they left him tied to the car. "Perhaps we might want to plan a little before charging out there."

"Couldn't hurt," Wash said. "I mean, I've been almost dead. That's close enough to all dead as I wanna be."

"Then let's get to planning," Mal said.

Cain could feel them on the other side of the door. He didn't care about the rabble; he cared only for the two shining so brightly in the Force. He had them trapped at last, even if he knew his master would not appreciate the number of men lost in the process. The young Dark Jedi had not anticipated the rebels blowing their own cavern. He fully expected his men to rush into crowds of terrified civilians who would gladly give up the ones he wanted.

Another lesson learned, he told himself.

Finally, the door handle began to spin. "Be ready," Cain said to his men.

Without warning, a flash of blue light severed the hinges of the heavy door, which then burst out from its frame, turned in mid-air, and slammed painfully into a grouping of five soldiers. From the darkened hole of the cave a train of connected electric cars buzzed out toward the ship where Cain waited.

Behind him, the main hangar door opened by remote to accept the cars.

Cain reached out with his senses. "They are in the cars!" he called over his mic. "Open fire on the cars!"

As soldiers stood to open fire in the dust-strewn air of small valley where the _Serenity_ was hidden, Cain felt a wave in the Force and realized the depth of his mistake only as six more people emerged from the cavern, guns blazing and lightsabers humming.

Seven soldiers were down before they even realized where the shooting was coming from. Cain cursed the terrible visibility of the blasted planet and pulled his own saber. As always, it would fall on him to get things done.

On the other side of the bowl-shaped depression, Quinlan and River separated, providing cover for Mal, Afolabi, Zoe and Jayne as the four of them split and continued firing. Though none of the four knew the Force, even Quinlan admired their remarkable aim. What was once a force of twenty was quickly reduced to a force of nine, providing much better odds.

It was just as he was reducing the number of the enemy to eight when he felt a flash of rage and dark energy through the Force. "River!" he called.

River felt it also and rolled clear just as a short, blond figure came down where she was, red saber flashing. Zoe and Jayne took a look at the newcomer and scrambled for cover, but he ignored them.

Even over the howl of the wind, Quinlan heard when the young man called out: "River my love, it's time to go home." He charged at River with obvious Force-speed.

River caught his first swing, then his second and third on her blue blade. Her face had become a mask, and Vos felt through the link they had formed over the past few days as she gave in wholesale to that mechanical part of her psyche that changed her from beautiful young woman to deadly killing machine.

What disturbed Vos, though, was that the Dark Force user did the same exact thing. His face became a blank mask and he moved with the same fluid steps as River did. Though he was not tall, he was taller than she, with greater reach. And though their physical skills were similar, Vos sensed this one had more intensive Force training than River.

"Mal," Quin said.

"Do what you have to do," the captain shot back. Beside him, Afolabi stood and picked off another Alliance soldier.

Quin nodded and bound across the depression in one Force-borne leap. The Dark Sider felt the power through the Force and looked up in time to see Quinlan flying toward him. Rather than roll away, the Dark Sider held his ground and pointed his saber, hoping to impale his target with his own momentum.

Trained as he might be, the new enemy had obviously never fought a Jedi Master. Vos Force-pushed the young man. The ground around him cracked and he flew like a bullet from a gun into a group of his own soldiers just as Vos landed on the ground. Without pause Vos lifted his hand and unleashed a volley of blue Force lightning that instantly killed the soldiers who caught the Dark Sider, and threw the Force user himself against a stone wall, where he crumpled.

"Let's go!" Vos called. He and the shaken River resumed their guard duties, warding off shots from the remaining soldiers as Hal, Jayne and Zoe boarded. Then they two climbed aboard. The ship was airborne instantly.

Wash and Zoe were already on the flight deck. Jayne, Mal and Afolabi were helping Simon, Inara, Book and Kaylee extricate themselves from the middle of the train cars where all the supplies had been piled on them.

River ignored them and collapsed cross-legged to the floor. Quinlan knelt beside him. "You know that man."

She nodded, and then covered her face as she bent over. Vos rested a hand on her back and looked up as the others slowly approached. When River straightened, her eyes were red and moist. "He was on the bus with me when we first went to the Academy. His name was Derek Wonsowski. He liked geometry and had a real cat named Hooky. He told me he would take me to an Opera one day and that we would get married." Her whole body shook. "He was so angry."

"The Dark Side consumes its own practitioners, until the man is gone and only the darkness remains," Vos said. There was a catch in his voice—a memory too intense for even the Jedi master to articulate.

"So what do we do now?" Simon asked.

"I wish I know," the Captain said. He stared down at the tearful River, then to her brother. "I wish to hell I knew."


	17. The Operative Strikes Back

**sandcrawlr**--Thanks for the kind review. I'm glad my AU with Wash and Book worked for you. As for reviews, I went five chapters without any reviews, then had quite a few, and now they're slowing down again. I've come to accept that my stories just won't get the huge number that others get. This is not a feel good story. Bad things are going to happen, although I do hold out some hope for my characters. There is always hope, and I do hope you continue to enjoy!

**Roosterman71**--Thanks. It was important that Cain be River's counterpart. He personified what the Academy and the Blue Sun Corp were tryin to do.

* * *

**Chapter Seventeen: The Operative Strikes Back**

"Mal, we got issues!" Wash announced over the intercom.

Mal looked up from River and Vos to the rest of the crew. "Issues?" He turned and ran, and the others followed. "What kind of issues?"

"Oh God, oh God, they're about to blow us out of the sky?"

"That's a big issue."

The "issue" in question was not one, but two Alliance heavy cruisers. "Think we can outrun 'em?" Mal asked.

"Not a chance," Wash said. "They've got the angle of attack. They can run us back to ground any time, and they can move a lot faster in orbit than we can in the atmosphere."

From the co-pilot's seat, Zoe said, "They're hailing us. We've been ordered to surrender or be fired upon."

"_Tian xiz shou you de ren dou gai si,_" Mal cursed. He turned and looked back at River, then Vos. "What's that Force of yours say to do?"

"It says to veer hard to starboard," River said.

"What?" Wash looked. "Oh crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap!" He jerked the control wheel hard right and slammed both feet down. Everyone grabbed what they could as _Serenity_'s nose shot up, then the whole ship cork-screwed around a missile fired from the nearest Alliance ship.

"Those bastards are shooting at us!" Mal said.

"Really?" Wash muttered. "Hadn't noticed. Hang on!"

He engaged the gravity drive just as a volley of three missiles flew at them. The first struck the starboard engine. The second struck the port engine. The last one struck the gravity drive itself. The ship rocked violently and began spinning.

"Wash, what did you do to my ship?" Mal screamed.

Suddenly the whole group of them, Wash, Zoe, Mal, Jayne, Book, Afolabi, Inara, Kaylee, River and Quinlan Vos were thrown violently to the port side of the flight deck as all motion came to a complete stop. A second later, all power shut down. A moment after that, they started floating.

"Oh God," Wash said. "EM pulse and grappler hooks. We're done."

Indeed, through the windows the whole ship fell into shadow as the cruiser covered over them. "We could try hiding River outside in a space suit again," Jayne said. "Worked last time."

The underside of the cruiser split up, bursting with light from a fully enclosable docking bay. "Well crud, there went that plan," Jayne muttered.

The grappler lines pulled the crippled ship into the brightly lit bay. A moment later the bay doors closed below the ship, and _Serenity_ was laid to rest on the bay floor. Doors opened to either side, and dozens upon dozens of Alliance soldiers spilled out to surround the ship. The walls themselves opened as large caliber barrels poked out.

At last a man left the ranks of the soldiers and stood directly in front of _Serenity_. He had a dusky, Hispanic complexion and stood with the same air of confidence as Samuel Afolabi.

The former Operative sucked in his breath. "Walsingham," he said.

"What now?" Mal asked.

"My replacement when I left the service or Parliament," Afolabi said. "He may not be a Dark Jedi, but he is a very dangerous man."

The man simply stood waiting.

"Well, I don't think waiting him out is going to be an option," Zoe muttered.

Vos made the decision for them. Without a word the Jedi left the flight deck. The others trailed slowly behind down to the cargo bay. Vos hit the switch and the ramp started to lower. Then sparks flew, and the ramp simply dropped uncontrolled to slam with a loud crash against the deck of the hanger.

The Jedi walked down the ramp until he stood before the man Afolabi called Walsingham.

"Do you know who I am?" Vos said.

"I do, Master Vos," Walsingham said. He spoke with the same measured, cultured tones as Afolabi.

"Do you understand that I could kill everyone in this room?" the Jedi said.

"I believe you could make a very good try," Walsingham said. "But in so doing, your companions would die."

"That is why I am speaking with you now," the Jedi said. "What are your orders regarding this ship?"

"To apprehend you, and take you to Londinum."

"Will the creature that attacked us on the planet below be a part of this trip?"

"We answer to separate masters," Walsingham said. "I serve the Parliament of the Anglo-Sino Alliance. He serves the Blue Sun Corporation. His ship has not broken orbit from Shadow yet. We, on the other hand, are already well on our way."

"Will anyone on _Serenity_ be harmed?" Vos asked.

"If you cooperate, no," Walsingham said. "My orders are to bring you all to Londinum. If you resist, however, I will do everything in my power to kill everyone."

Vos seemed to consider this answer. He looked back over his shoulder. "I will talk to the captain. It is his ship, his people. But I tell you this. If you break your word, I will ensure you are the first to die. Do you understand?"

"I do."

Vos turned and walked back up the ramp to Mal and the rest. "Captain," Vos said. "This is your ship, and it is your decision. If we fight, River and I could kill many of them, but they would still win. They have too many men. If we surrender, Walsingham has given me his word none of you will be harmed. He has orders to take us to a planet called Londinum."

As the Jedi spoke, River drifted to his side, all the way looking at Mal. The captain turned and looked back at his people. Kaylee was holding Simon's arm. Zoe stood beside Wash, close enough to protect him or kiss him. Jayne stood with arms cross and face glowering, while Book and Afolabi were unreadable. Then there was Inara. She stood calmly, hands at her side, staring at him with large, dark eyes. She smiled weakly at him and nodded.

Mal bowed his head a moment, then turned back to Vos. "There's been enough blood shed by this crew," he said softly. He jerked into motion, striding down the ramp until he stood before the Operative. Very slowly, he pulled both pistols from his holsters and dropped them at the man's feet.

"You won this time," he muttered.

Walsingham smiled. "I usually do."

"Well, it is a nice prison at least," Wash commented.

The "prison" Walsingham showed them was actually a suite of five rooms joined to a common room and accessible by a single door. The room had a Cortex receiving terminal, separate washroom facilities in each room, comfortable chairs and beds, and had the smell of a hotel suite.

"Any room preference?" Zoe asked.

"We're off the ship," Mal said darkly. "Don't much care."

The couples quickly paired off. Several eyes turned as River stood by Vos's side. The large Jedi shrugged and River grinned. "Like it's a secret any more," she said.

The unattached men, being Afolabi, Book and Jayne, ended up in the middle room while the other four rooms held Simon and Kaylee, Wash and Zoe ("At least we're actually married," Wash said), River and Vos, and finally Mal and… "We might as well be," Inara said as she took his hand. "I don't seem to be able to get away from you."

"I reckon I am a mighty fine catch," Mal said with a tight smile. "But I'm a captain without a ship."

"You're a leader with your crew," she said. "This isn't over."

The flight from the rim worlds to the core was one of five weeks, even in an Alliance cruiser burning at full speed. During that entire time, they were kept in the suite. Food was delivered three times daily, and once every week a cleaning service came flanked by a dozen heavily armed soldiers. Since even the Jedi had given up their weapons, there was little chance of a fight.

They played cards. They watched the Cortex on news of the Reaper crises, which seemed to have slowed at the moment. They argued and yelled. They sat and stared.

The girls compared jewelry. Or more appropriately, they compared Inara's jewelry. "I love the earrings," Kaylee said. "I've always wanted earrings."

"You'd have to pierce your ears," Simon pointed out.

She grimaced. "Does it hurt?"

Inara laughed. "Not too much, Dear."

"I still love your necklace," River said quickly. She as always wore her oversized dress and black tights underneath. Inara and the other girls suspected the reason, but none bothered to mention it. "I've always loved _zhen yu._ It's the most beautiful stone in all the 'verse."

Inara touched her necklace, and then smiled. "Well, now at least I have ideas for your next birthday!"

One morning, at the beginning of the fifth and final week, River emerged from the room she shared with Quinlan and got a sip of water. She wore one of the Jedi's shirts, freshly laundered by the ship's maid service. It hung down almost to her knees and made a wonderful sleeping gown.

She was turning to go back when she saw Book standing in the middle of the room, staring at her. "You're pregnant," he said, stunned.

She looked down at her now visible bulge, which so far she'd been able to hide with loose clothing, then shrugged. "I told you I was going to have his baby."

"Just like you told me Armageddon was coming."

She nodded.

Book took a step closer. "I haven't ever told you this, but you should know I never wanted you to be hurt. I didn't join the ship because you were on board. I really was trying to escape my past. I'm sorry my past caught up to me."

"I know," she said. She touched his cheek. "I found my place. The Force made me whole. Quinlan made me happy. My child will be born in a time of bitterness, but she'll come from a moment of happiness. It's the best I could hope for."

"A girl?"

"Yes. Third month. She is four inches long and one ounce. She is growing her teeth."

"River, it's such a terrible time to have a child!"

River placed her hands over her stomach and looked down. "There will never be another time," she whispered. She looked up, her eyes suddenly wet with tears. "The end is coming so fast. All I have is hope."

Behind them, a door opened and Vos stepped out. River looked over Book's shoulder with tears in her eyes, and Book too turned. The Jedi regarded them somberly. "The future will come regardless," he spoke softly as he held out his arms. River drifted to him. "Live in the now, Little One. Be mindful of the living Force. We will face the end together, when it comes."

She nodded, and the two disappeared back into the room, leaving Book feeling stunned by a sense of foreboding.


	18. Meeting the Wizard

**sandcrawlr**--Chapter length is a good point. Since this fic is done it might be a little too late for me here, but I'll definitely keep that in mind with fics. Thanks!

**Roosterman71**--Travel time in the Firefly 'verse is a great deal longer than in the SW verse. Please they were at Shadow for a while, so, yeah, it's been three months since she and Vos started sleeping together. And I don't lie--bad things are coming.

**Bloodreaver Alpha**--Yep, you got it! Thanks for reading.

**Elentari2112**--I appreciate that, thank you very much. I'm glad you're enjoying it and I hope you continue to do so!

**Frootkake Productions**--Thank you. River proved to be a challenge, especially in the transition from nutty to Jedi initiate and lover. I wanted to let her character evolve without loosing that kookiness. I'm glad it's worked for you so far!

* * *

**Chapter Eighteen: Meeting the Wizard**

According to popular history, humans made landfall on Londinum only two hundred years ago.

Like Sihnon, Londinum's orbit took it in a leisurely path around the massive sun, providing a 558 day year with moderate seasonal changes. It was never very hot except for three months in high summer, nor was it very cold except in three months in deep winter. For the remaining 12 months of the year, temperatures hovered between 50 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit on the majority of the planet, with a reasonable polar region for those who liked it colder.

This ideal clime was the reason why the vast majority of humans from Earth's Western societies swarmed to Londinum first, and why those from the Eastern block moved to the similar Sihnon. It was simply more comfortable.

In two hundred years, the planet went from being devoid of human life to the capital of the known human universe, with a population approaching 12 billion. Although the planet was not yet consumed by its cities, the wilderness between urban areas was dwindling very quickly.

Walsingham stood on the observation platform of the command deck as his ship made orbit around the planet. On the horizon he could see the first of the new defensive platforms, but wondered what good they would do should the Reavers attack.

Warships of every size and description, from the newest models to ships that hadn't flown since well before the Unification War floated ready in geosynchronous orbits over the planet, while civilian traffic continued undaunted by the machines of death sharing their space.

A man cleared his throat and Walsingham turned to see Samhael Afolabi standing calmly on the edge of the platform between two guards. Both the current and former Operative knew that the guards were a formality for the sake of the rest of the bridge crew.

"Samhael," Walsingham said calmly enough.

Afolabi stepped further onto the platform until he too could behold the beauty of Londinum. "I always thought it was worth anything to protect this place," the former Operative said.

Walsingham's smile was wan. "I still do. Should they give the order, I would kill the whole lot of you, starting with you. There is a cold place in hell for such as you."

"A lake of ice under which suffer the traitors," Afolabi said. "I've read Dante as well, my friend. I suspect much of our leadership will end up in such a place. Is it betrayal when those you serve betray you?"

"They do what they have to do to ensure the survival of the society," Walsingham said. During the whole conversation, neither man looked at the other nor spoke in anything other than a casual tone. "We will be landing within the hour. Please make sure those in your party keep their tongues in check. It would be a shame if we had to execute the whole lot of you just for being rude."

"Especially when there are so many other reasons to do just that," Afolabi said.

Walsingham said nothing and cradled his chin with his right hand in thought. "The girl is pregnant."

Afolabi nodded. "I noticed that."

"The Jedi is the father."

"That would be a reasonable assumption."

Walsingham nodded decisively. "Have them ready. For your safety and ours, you will all be bound. Any attempt to escape will be dealt with most harshly."

"The Captain gave his word. You'll find Reynolds is many things, but an oath-breaker is not one of them."

"Just be ready."

* * *

Mal stood in front of his crew when the appointed hour arrived. He took a last look back at River, who made no effort now to hide her pregnancy. Simon was staring from his sister's bulge to the tall Jedi beside her with narrow eyes. Jayne had a slightly oafish expression. Neither took the news of River's pregnancy well.

Mal—well, as Inara put it, River did warn them all the moment she first saw Vos that she would have the man's baby.

He nodded to the rest and held out his hands first as Walsingham and his soldiers bound them. The eleven of them were led through the halls of the ship toward the shuttle that would take them to the surface. Two lines of ten men each flanked the prisoners, drawing a great deal of attention from the other crewmembers of the ship.

They rode the shuttle through the hazy atmosphere of one-half of the human capital over gently rolling hills bristling with towers, or occasionally a large estate. The only open grasslands Mal could see were the occasional parks, and a wide river surrounded by trees and shrubs that ran through the area.

When they reached it, there was no mistaking the Parliament Building for anything other than the seat of government. The building was a massive rhomboid of reflective glass rising a hundred stories above the surrounding structures. Odd platforms like fungal growths spurted from the sides of the building to form landing pads. It was to one of the top such pads that the shuttle flew.

As they walked out of the shuttle, Mal watched another squad of twenty heavily armed soldiers line up on either side of the platform as the first squad escorted the crew down the shuttle's ramp.

Mal looked back over his shoulder at River. She walked with her chin up but with a lost glaze in her eyes, much like she did in the days before Vos helped her recover her control. The wind blew brisk around them and overhead, lost clouds drifted across a painfully bright blue sky.

He took a deep breath and ducked his head a little as they entered Parliament.

The halls inside were lined in real wood. The carpet was an expensive Berber that muffled the sounds of their boots. Hanging from the walls were pieces of art from Earth-that-Was, artifacts of such overwhelming value that the sale of even one could destabilize the whole art industry.

They continued down a seemingly endless hall until they reached the one and only door. Walsingham stopped just inside. "You will have a hundred energy-beam weapons pointed directly at your heads at all times in this room," he warned coldly. "Any action considered threatening will result in the immediate deaths of all of you, not just the offender." He turned cold eyes on Vos. "Except for you. The weapons that would normally cover you will be turned instead on Miss Tam to insure she is the first to die."

Without another word, Walsingham stepped past them back up the hall. The two squads of twenty soldiers each made a parade-ground turn about and marched away after him, leaving the small group alone in the hall.

"Huh," Mal muttered.

"Seems a bit odd," Wash noted. "Hey, think they're gonna let us go?"

"Think cows'll come flying out your butt?" Jayne said. "They ain't gonna let us go. Gorram bastards'll shoot us moment we get in there."

"I don't think so," Vos said. "There's only one person in there waiting for us. And I know who he is."

The door opened. "Please come in," a deep and cultured voice said in Corlingua. They stepped into a smallish conference room holding a single table with twelve chairs. One chair sat on the far side of the table, while eleven similar chairs filled the near side.

A single man sat in the lone chair, watching them calmly. He appeared to be in his late seventies, with thinning white hair. However, his bearing was ram-rod straight as they shuffled in. "Please have a seat," he said. His voice sounded reassuring and strong. "You have no idea how long and hard I have been trying to meet with you."

Mal nodded and they took their seats. River sat between Mal and Vos near the center directly opposite the old man. Only when they were all seated did Quinlan Vos speak.

"Sajé Tasha assassinated you, Chancellor."

Former Republic Chancellor Finis Valorum smiled wanly. "It is good to see you again as well, Master Vos," he said. "Ms. Tash showed that even Anzati can be bought. I offered three times what my enemies were paying her and promised I would fake my own death. I had very few friends left, but those I had were very effective."

"I absorbed her thoughts," Vos said. "She saw you die."

Valorum smiled again. "Did you know that Jedi Master Gallia and I were close? I know Jedi were forbidden romantic attachments, but I think we both know that rule was bent more often than not." His eyes fell on River. She stared right back with just the hint of a smile.

"Evidently Adi had quite a gift for memory, especially other people's memories. After she received her payment, Ms. Tasha agreed to let her memories be altered for all our sakes. All it took was half of my family's fortune."

Vos accepted the story with a nod.

"So you're an alien like Vos?" Mal asked.

"Alien is such a strange word," Valorum said. "You are baseline humans. In a way, I am your descendent. We are your future."

"My head hurts," Jayne muttered.

The Chancellor leaned forward as if to share a conspiracy. "When I found this place, I was amazed! So many baseline humans together with a unique culture and history completely removed from the galaxy. We may have evolved on Earth! We believe now that the Celestials transplanted humans onto Coruscant, just as they made this wonderful star system." His eyes gleamed with an intellectual excitement.

"After I made contact with the leaders here, I discovered just what Palpatine was doing. This place was more than just a breeding ground for dark Jedi. It was to be an endless supply line for soldiers to keep the rest of the galaxy under control. The people here were subjected to chemical and educational conditioning that would never have been accepted in the Republic."

"G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate," Mal said.

"An offense against sentient creatures," the former Chancellor confirmed with an emphatic nod. "But that was just one of the many approaches. You have heard of the Blue Sun Corporation?"

Everyone save Vos nodded.

"It was started by a Sith Lord named Plageius forty sixty ago. It makes everything from food stuffs and medicines to weapons systems. This corporation has been responsible for the general increase in technologies in this system, but those technologies have been available only for the central government use. The war you fought, Captain Reynolds, was un-winnable for you. You never knew, but the Resistance faltered when a warship entered the battle and destroyed four-fifths of the Resistance fleet in less than half an hour using heavy turbolaser cannons from the Republic."

"Never did hear 'bout that," Reynolds said.

"Of course not," Valorum countered. "There were no Resistance survivors from the encounter. The remaining ships found the wreckage and received an ultimatum to surrender. They chose to do so. Without your fleet, your ground forces had little choice but to surrender as well."

"What is your role?" Vos asked. "What are you doing here?"

"After I arrived and learned what was happening, I approached a few key members of Parliament to alert them to the other side of Chancellor Palpatine's agenda. The PAX was the final straw. You see, Miranda was a Blue Sun initiative, not a Parliamentary one. Oh, to be sure, key member's of Parliament knew about the project, but they did not formulate it or have a hand in its execution. They were afraid if the truth of Miranda escaped into the general population, enough questions would come about that the true extent of the Republic's infiltration would be discovered. Realizing everything I told them was true, they elevated me to the position of Defense Minister. It is from that post that I reached out to you, Samhael."

Afolabi nodded. "I recognize your voice, now. It was you who got me into the restricted cortex bands."

Valorum looked at Simon. "I also reached out to your father when I learned of his inquiries. I'm sad to say that I am the one that helped him gain the answers he sought. I'm so very sorry those answers drove him to commit the act he did."

He leaned back and sighed, then stood slowly. "Walk with me," he said. "I am an old man, and sitting for too long is bothersome."

He proved to be a tall, slim figure as he led them out of the conference room through a door opposite the one they came in. They emerged in a room furnished with nothing more than two tables, on which all of their weapons rested.

Mal studied the older man. "It is no trick," Valorum assured him. "You are in no danger around me."

Vos wordlessly lifted his two lightsabers and attached them to his belt. River did the same, and following their example the rest reclaimed their weapons. Valorum stepped through yet another door and the party emerged on a platform overlooking a cavernous room filled with cortex and wave screens of varying sizes. There were hundreds of such screens.

"This is the center of the Alliance government," Valorum said softly, as if in a holy place. "We've upgraded the cortex communication using holonet transceivers to ensure real-time images and communications across the system. We've deployed observation drones to every moon and planet in the system, inhabited or not. And we ringed the outer perimeter of the system with similar sentinels. It was these that alerted us and Palpatine's agents to the Far Outsiders."

Mal felt a ball of cold form in his stomach. "You mean Reavers?"

Valorum's chuckle was utterly devoid of humor. "Oh, I wish it were only Reavers. Mindless, brutal animals we can handle. No, these creatures are the true aliens. The Reavers worship them as gods. They are just as evil as the Reavers, but with a cunning and terrifying intellect to match their atrocities. They've swept away even our turbo-laser equipped ships. They use the Reavers as cannon-fodder, but when they come up against Alliance cruisers there you can see the brutes themselves. Their ships are organic, and powerful."

"Did Palpatine know about them?"

Valorum shrugged. He pointed to one of the larger wave screens that showed the exterior shot from an Alliance cruiser. Unlike previous encounters, this ship was shooting blasts of green light at a chitinous object larger than any ten cruisers. Blasts of molten plasma shot back.

"We don't know what they are called, but every world they land on is dead just days after. The few refugees that escape describe wanton torture and mass killings on a scale beyond even the worst of what the Confederacy did during the Galactic civil war. Yet they crush all organized resistance. At the rate they are passing through the system, they will have conquered every world within ten months. Maybe sooner."

"So what do you want with us?" Vos asked.

Valorum turned and looked over them all. "Somehow, you evaded not just our best Operative, but that Operative's entire fleet, just by yourselves. You evaded a dark Jedi. Your cunning, Captain, has flabbergasted even our best military experts. It is not just the Alliance in danger here, but every living soul in this system. And that is why I am asking for the help of you and your crew. Help me find a weakness to these creatures. Help me fight them."

"And if we don't?"

"Then one of two things will happen," Valorum said. "Either these creatures will sweep through our worlds and kill everyone here as a prelude to invading the greater galaxy, or Emperor Palpatine will be forced to send in his forces to combat them, ending any semblance of freedom for these people. And there is no guarantee the emperor's forces would be successful."

Mal turned and looked back across the room. "What about those crazy folk chasing us off Shadow?"

"Those are the Emperor's personal agents ," Valorum said. "It is a subtle game I play, Captain. I can stall and misguide. If you say yes, I will tell Lord Cain that you have been killed. If you say no, then I will let you go and say you escaped. But I cannot stand up to him. If Palpatine learns I am alive, he would quickly correct his mistake."

"My ship's awful beat up."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, captain. Subtly or otherwise, I do command considerable resources. By the time I'm done, you'll be able to get from one end of the system to another in mere hours and days instead of weeks and months."

"I still need to think about it."

Below, on the screen, the exterior mount of the alliance cruiser recorded a wall of plasma streaking toward it before the image was lost in static. "Think fast, Captain," Valorum said. "The storm is fast approaching."

He then looked at Jayne and smiled. "Plus, of course, we would pay you quite well for your trouble."

"I'm in," Jayne said.


	19. The Shadow of Serenity

**JamieT19**--There was a point after they arrived at Shadow where I was trying to figure out how to get to the end I knew was coming. Once I figured that out, I had the rest of the story finished within the week.

**divad relffehs**--The entire story takes place during the nine months in 19 BBY between when Quinlan Vos escapes Kashyyyk returns to Khaleen Hentz in the comics. I tried to make th time frames mesh as much as possible with established GFFA cannon.

**Bladefax**--Thanks, and okay! ;)

**Elentari2112**--I appreciate that, and there are a few more chapters to come, I promise!

**Roosterman71**--Once in a very rare while, I'm able to surprise my readers. But truthfully, I needed a politician who was familiar with the GFFA but who was also at heart and honest man. It narrowed my choices down a bit.

**Oracle**--Things are going to start happening very fast. I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far!

This next chapter is admittedly small and I apologize, but it is a bridge chapter to get them where they need to go.

* * *

**Chapter Nineteen: A Shadow of Serenity**

River Tam enjoyed meditating. For those precious few moments, she sank into a center of peace and tranquility that allowed her to truly see herself.

She saw a young girl terrified and unbalanced. Who saw threats around her everywhere. A young girl who was so wounded she could not even communicate her pain to those around her because she herself could not understand the nature of the wounds.

Then she saw a woman undergoing a metamorphosis. Changing from the wounded child to something else. She lowered her hand on her stomach and felt the life growing within. Strong, brilliant in the Force.

Then she saw the future, and the uncertainty and terror that awaited them. She knew there was a possibility of happiness, but only a slight one. So many things piled up against her, so many voices cried out in agony. She heard them ringing out from the future, crying in pain or agony or loss. So many voices, so much pain.

"I can't see my way," River whispered.

"There is only one way through," a new voice answered. "The difficulty is in finding it."

River opened her eyes and saw a young woman sitting cross-legged across the floor. She had mousy blond hair and kind, sad blue eyes. It was the young woman Quin found at the academy. The young woman whose memories flourished in River's mind.

"I always wanted to see you," River said. "Even before I understood who or what you were, and why I carried your thoughts, I wanted to see you."

"I've always been there," Lorana Jinzler said. "Your mind was too overwhelmed to see. But Master Vos has changed that."

"Did you know him during your life?"

"He was well known in the Order," Lorana said.

"Did you love him too?"

The ghost of Lorana Jinzler smiled shyly. "Most of the female human padawans my age harbored crushes. But attachment was not supposed to be the way of the Jedi. There is no emotion."

"Did you believe that?"

"No, but my master tried very hard to force me too."

"I remember." River did, too. Lorana's memories of Jorus C'Boath were among the most vivid of the translated thoughts. "Am I wrong to love him Quin?"

"To love is never wrong," Lorana said. "What you are doing must be done. The road you have begun must be traveled. The daughter you bear must be born."

"Will she know happiness?"

"In time, yes. Pain, happiness, joy."

River bowed her head. "You're not just a memory."

A faint blue aura slowly emerged from around Lorana. "I never said I was. What other Jedi discovered through study and wisdom, I gained through self-sacrifice and dumb luck. I will be with you, always. Be strong, my little River. If you can weather this storm, there will be some peace."

"Will it be with Quin?"

Lorana shrugged, and slowly faded from view. River looked up as Quinlan Vos stepped into her quarters.

Since their meeting with the Defense Minister the crew stayed in sumptuous quarters in a nearby apartment tower. Each had their own spacious quarters—River disliked the large, empty space and longed for any moment with another human being.

The Jedi sat easily into a cross-legged position exactly where the ghost of Lorana Jinzler was a moment before.

"How do you feel?"

"Like an expectant mother."

The bump was not large, but it was definitely obvious. She lifted her shirt and stared down at her still only slightly distended belly with awe. "I never thought something like this could happen. After Simon got me out of the Academy, I thought my life was over. I never dreamed I would live so intensely as I have since I met you."

Vos leaned forward and gently rested a hand on her stomach. "She is strong and healthy," he said. "Strong in the Force."

"Yes," River said. She placed her hands over his. "She will be a guiding light." She closed her eyes. "Stay with me now, Quin."

He nodded, moved around until he sat behind her, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders as she leaned back into him. "I will stay with you as long as the Force allows," he whispered into the air.

He did not see the tears that welled at River's eyes and ran slowly down to her chin.

* * *

"Is that _Serenity_?" Wash asked. "Looks like someone stuck a rocket on the business-end of a bug."

"Not a rocket," Defense Minister Valorum corrected, "a hyperdrive unit." He looked at Mal. "Your ship has been updated in other areas as well, Captain. We've added weaponry and a more powerful reactor to power them."

On the other side of the captain, Kaylee looked at the ship with half-lidded eyes and lips ajar, as if caught in the throws of passion. "More power?"

"The design of Alliance ships is basically sound," Valorum explained patiently. His voice was mesmerizing. "It is simply a matter of power production. You can't use a weapon that would drain the power of a small city with every shot. So, your ship has been given a new heart."

"Can I see it?" Kaylee said, as if in a trance.

Valorum nodded gracefully and the self-taught mechanic strode up the open loading ramp into the cargo ship itself with an excited, girlish squeal. The ship and crew remained with the Defense Minister in an otherwise-empty room three weeks after their arrival on Londinum.

Mal was looking at the mounted weapons on the engine struts and protruding from the nose of his boat. "What are those, again?"

"Laser cannons in the along each wing and a turbolaser in the prow," Valorum said. "We've also installed military-grade ray and particle shields and proton launchers. Unfortunately you have lost some cargo room, but I hope you'll agree the increase in power and weapons makes up for that. You also are now a licensed independent Operative of the Ministry of Defense. Your ship has been renamed the _Shadow Valley_, in recognition of its original name."

"Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death,'" River quoted. "A good name for what we have to do."

"Do we have any blasters?" Vos asked.

"The best I could smuggle into the system," Valorum said. "Blaster rifles, a few sniper rifles, and a portable laser cannon. It should help."

Mal nodded and hitched up his belt. "When I said I'd help, didn't think it'd be like this."

"This war isn't about independence any more, Captain," Valorum said. "It is about the very survival of your people, and possibly of the galaxy itself. Nor are you alone. We've contracted with several independent freighters to aid us. But honestly, I hold more hope for you and your crew than with any of the other ships."

"I don't know whether to be flattered or worried," Mal said. He walked across the floor of the bay until he stood next to his ship. The vectored outboard thrusters looked the same, albeit much shinier now, but the hyper-thingy that replaced his gravity drive looked strange. It really did look like someone took the glowing dome that gave the Firefly class its name and replaced it with a long, flat tank roughly the shape of a slice of watermelon.

He lifted a hand and touched the side of his ship, and after a long moment realized that, drive changes or not, this was his _Serenity_. He turned back to Valorum, who of all of them seemed to understand Mal's thoughts. The Alliance Minister of Defense gave a slow, solemn nod. "Good hunting, Captain Reynolds. For the sake of all the people in this system, I wish you and your crew the very best of luck."

The crew of _Serenity_ climbed aboard. Mal, Wash and Zoe made their way to the bridge while the rest of the crew went to check out their respective rooms. Mal noticed the bridge had been rewired extensively.

"Oh, new buttons!" Wash said.

"That sure does look like an Alliance fighter weapons station," Zoe said as she looked at what was one the co-pilot's seat.

"Yeah, it surely does," Mal said. He sat down and started looking at the firing controls. Although he and Zoe fought for the resistance, most of the Browncoats fighters actually came from the Alliance. Anyone who flew one, or was around one, recognized the targeting and weapons controls.

"So button one is the laser cannons," Mal said. "Button two is tubolasers."

"Shields are over here," Wash said excitedly. He turned and glowed at Zoe. "Honey, we have shields. Isn't that cool?"

"I'm very excited for you, dear," Zoe said. She turned her attention back to the weapons controls. "Looks like we have torpedoes of some kind."

"That'd be fun," Mal said. "Shame we didn't have these toys during the war."

"Bigger shame the other side did have these toys."

"A true statement if ever one be heard," Mal said. He turned to Wash. "Well, think you can still fly her?"

Wash nodded, though his eyes were still pouring over the controls. "What're repulsor coils?"

"Don't reckon I know," Mal admitted.

Wash hit the button, and even with the vectored thrusters off line the whole ship lifted into the air. "_Juh_ _jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan_," Wash yelled. When the fright passed, he looked first at his wife, then at Mal. "Do you realize we are floating?" His voice rose an octave. "We're really floating?"

"Very interesting," Mal said. "Maybe if you turn on the engines, we could try flying too."

"Oh, yeah." Wash warmed the thrusters up, and the _Shadow Valley_ soared out of the hangar.

It took a good ten minutes to clear the atmosphere. As they did so, they saw newly arrived orbital platforms over the planet. "I bet those are going up over all the core worlds," Mal said.

"I wonder how long before they start to equip all the Alliance ships with alien weapons?" Zoe said.

Just then River and Vos wandered in. The Jedi master caught sight of the platforms that he was not able to see during their arrival. "Those are heavy turbolasers," he said, pointing to a set of wicked looking guns on one of the platforms. "Looks like they've had to rush the integration of technologies."

"Answers that," Wash said. He turned to Mal. "So, captain, where to next?"

"New Melbourne," Mal decided. "We know that was one of the first planets to fall. It's a big world, too, so we might be able to sneak in on them."

"I wouldn't count on it," Vos said. "Still, the larger the world, the more time to escape we'll have when the enemy responds."

"There you have it," Mal said with a tight smile. "So how fast can this thing go?"

"I doubt we'll be able to get a clear hyperspace lane for long in this distance," Vos said. "In a clear lane a fast ship can cross the whole galaxy in a few weeks, months at worst. Here, without clear lanes, it will still take days." The Jedi pointed to one of the new devices on the bridge. "This is a navcomp system. It's designed specifically to compute safe passages for hyperspace travel. You may only be able to run the hyperdrive for a few minutes at a time, but those minutes will be enough to cross a system."

"This just get's better and better," Wash said. When they cleared the pull of Londinum's gravity well, he turned and looked at Vos. "Okay, Quin, how do we do this?"

Vos ran his fingers over the navcomp interface. A remarkable 3-D image of the system appeared. As he typed a dot appeared to represent them, and then another dot appeared toward the outer edge of the system to represent New Melbourne. A series of red lines appeared in a roughly circular path that led from one dot to the other. "It has computed our flight plan," Vos said. "Just follow these instructions and it should get us there is just two days."

"Two days from Londinum to New Melbourne?" Wash's jaw gaped. "I'm in love with a computer."


	20. Evil

**Boombaye**--I believe Wash would have to agree with you there. Technology, and dinosaurs, of course.

**sandcrawlr**--Indeed. And what upgrades they got. An unshielded sublight ship going to a shielded, heavily armed hyper-space enabled ship. Wash is in heaven.

**Roosterman71**--Absolutely!

* * *

**Chapter Twenty: Evil**

Wash flew on the edge of his seat. Mal saw this with a scowl. Usually his pilot sat far back in the chair as he flew. The last time Wash flew from the edge of his seat was as they made their way through the battle between the Reavers and Alliance toward Miranda.

The second time was New Melbourne. Mal knew why, though. The moment they emerged from their short hyperspace jump, they all saw it. It was Wash who spoke, however.

"They broke Whitefall," Wash said with sublime awe.

He was not lying. The whole moon of Whitefall had somehow been cracked in half. Where once an intact planet-sized moon orbited New Melbourne, they saw instead a disc-shaped clumping of massive rocks. From the middle of the orbiting mess, they caught images of something unimaginably large being built.

"I'll take pictures for Valorum," Mal muttered. "But don't get any closer." The captain handled the high-powered optics that were part of the weapons suite Valorum added to the co-pilot's station.

"I can live with that," Wash said.

"The seas are wrong," Zoe noted as she leaned over Wash's shoulder.

"The whole system is wrong," Wash said. "Broken moons, strange colored oceans and lakes. Nothing about this is right."

Mal had seen that too, but said nothing. Vos and River were on the bridge as well, along with Afolabi. All of them were staring intently at the terrestrial giant that was New Melbourne. Around the massive planet swung a variety of moons. Those moons that had open bodies of water looked just as wrong, where they were not cracked open like eggs.

The seas had changed from a dark, cobalt blue to a light shade of blue.

"Anyone watching us?" Mal asked.

"Not that I can see," Wash said. "Should we go down?"

"Let's go," Mal said.

Behind him, the captain heard whispers. He turned his seat around and studied Vos and River. "No whispering in class," Mal said.

"The whole planet feels wrong in the Force," River said.

"Tell me something I don't know," Mal said.

"I can sense people," Quinlan added, "but their Force signatures are weak and strangely…flavored, if you will. It is as if they've been changed somehow. I sense pain and fear and rage. Lot's of rage. But I don't sense the attackers in the Force at all."

"_Jen dao mei_," Mal muttered. "We wind up here and find the bad guys have all gone home."

"I don't think so," Quinlan said. "I don't sense the Reavers, but I sense danger. We should proceed carefully."

"I can do careful," Wash said as he spun the ship over to enter the atmosphere. They started bouncing on the upper mesosphere of the planet. Around them plasma began to light up the edges of the ship.

Suddenly Wash grinned. "Say it, Captain."

Mal blinked. "Say what?"

"Say 'Shields up'!"

Mal shook his head. "Why do I have to say it if you're already gonna do it?"

Wash looked like a kicked puppy. "Please?"

"Okay," Mal said with a mutter. "Shields up!"

"Yes, Captain!" Wash said with a flourish. He touched a button on his panel, and immediately the plasma seemed to recede from the edges of the ship to a point perhaps a meter hour. "That is…so…cool!" Wash crowed. He looked up at Zoe. "We have shields!"

Zoe kissed his cheek. "That's nice, dear."

Eventually the worst of the turbulence passed and they emerged into a pale blue sky over a landscape completely alien. "I've been to this place many a time," Mal said. "Fought two battles here. Never seen it like this."

The great seas of the planet were indeed a different color. More importantly, everyone could see pale beaches where the water levels had receded even on oceans larger than most planetary landmasses. The water was being diverted into massive fields, many as large as continents, where odd, lump-shaped objects grew. The closer they got, the better they could see.

"Are those trees?" Wash asked.

"They look a lot like those fighters we saw in the Cortex feeds," Afolabi noted from the back of the bridge.

All of them looked harder, and immediately saw what the former Operative meant. "You mean they grow their spaceships?" Zoe said.

"Organic technology," Vos said. "The mastery of biology required for something like that is stunning. In all the galaxy, there is only one other instance of organically grown ships."

"No, what's stunning is that I can't see the end of the field," Mal said. The others looked forward, and the irrigated field filled with the strange starship growths extended for miles ahead, and miles to either side.

"Tens of thousands," Vos whispered. "Hundreds of thousands."

Eventually the field came to an end at the foot of a mountain range. There were a few clumps of coniferous trees, but mostly the mountain was rocky. "Any chance you can put us down?" Mal said.

"Always a chance," Wash said. He found a block of granite on the peak large enough for the ship and brought her down gently between a few clumps of trees.

"Keep the engines warm," Mal ordered. "I have a feeling we're going to be leaving in a hurry."

"We usually do, sir," Zoe said.

The mountain range they landed on was volcanic in nature and rose in a narrow line between two vast plains. As they emerged from between the clumps of coniferous trees, they were afforded an incredible view of the plains to the east and west, both directions stretching out for as far as they could see.

The lines of irrigation water ran in perfectly straight stripes for as far as they could see. The strange growths sprouted in even lines as well. In the far distance to the west, the growths changed shape, but even with the macrobinoculars provided by Valorum, they could not see exactly what the other shapes were.

As Mal studied the fields, though, he did see something of interest. "There are people down there," Quinlan said before Mal could voice his discovery.

"Looks like they're working the fields," Mal said. He straightened. "Reavers."

He handed the macros to Quinlan. "Do Reavers carry whips?"

"One way to find out," Mal said.

"We have to go down there," Zoe added.

"Time to play with some more of our new toys, then," Wash said.

"Not 'we', dear," Zoe said.

"She's right," Mal said when he saw Wash's look of disappointment. "Me, Zoe, Jayne and the Jedi twinlets here. The rest stay with the ship and get ready to bolt first sign of danger."

Moments later, the Mule III floated down the ramp. Where the first mule was just a four-wheeled ATV and the second one a hoversled, Mule III was nothing less than a fully enclosed hover truck with an open bed in back for storage and transport. Vos and River climbed into the back with Jayne while Zoe and Mal rode up front.

Jayne carried one of the new heavy blaster rifles. "Have you named it yet?' River asked.

"This here's Beulah," Jayne said proudly. "You name your light sword thingy?"

"I was thinking Excalibur, but it didn't seem appropriate," River said lightly. "Then I considered naming it Durendal since we're a small band that would almost certainly die trying to defend the rest of the galaxy, but I always hold out hope that some of us may survive. Then I finally realized I should call it Sting, since I am very small, and I face terrible foes."

Everyone in the hovercar turned and stared. Jayne closed his gaping mouth and shook his head. "Beulah sounds better."

"We'd better get moving before Jayne's head explodes," Zoe said.

The hovercar hummed as it darted forward. They came to the edge of the volcanic cliffs and started gliding down the side of the mountain toward the field. "When we get down," Mal said, "we're going to stay behind the tree line. We only go far enough to see what we're dealing with, and then we move on."

The tree line terminated just a few dozen feet from the halls leading up to the mountain. Mal brought the car to a quite halt behind the trees. The five of them climbed out without shutting the doors and moved to the very edge of the trees.

This close, the strange growths towered as tall as the trees. They could see better details of the bulbs and knew without any question that they were looking at small, one-man fighters. Around the bulbs a pair of people worked, if the word "people" was used loosely.

Both were stripped nude, and strange white, bone-like growths erupted from their bodies in odd places. One appeared male, the other female. "Are they human?" Zoe whispered.

"They used to be," Vos answered.

Mal turned the macros to either side, looking along the edge of the fields that ran along the edge of the mountains. "Can't see nary a soul 'sides those two," he said.

"With so many ships growing, they couldn't put someone on every one," Vos said.

"We can shoot 'em from here," Jayne said.

"Well, yeah, we could, if we were stupid," Mal said bitingly. "We're here for intel, not to go corpsifying the locals."

"They're coming back this way," Zoe noted.

Ignoring the others, Mal saw River and Quinlan talking. "What?" he demanded.

"We'll get them," Quinlan said confidently.

As the two twisted people came walking back, Quinlan and River stood together on the edge of the tree line and simply motioned. First the man, and then the woman, came flying through the air in response to the gestures.

Both fell into heaps just behind the tree line.

The man instantly jumped to his feet. His face was covered in the strange growths, including a gruesome one that seemed to cover his mouth with a single white spike. Other spikes and sickening growths sprouted painfully from his back, thighs and shoulders.

He looked around at them and made an angry, howling sound. Suddenly he shot forward and attacked Jayne. Jayne responded with the butt of his blaster rifle. The man's head snapped back, but he attacked again with his hands clawed forward. The white growths sprouted from his fingers as well, like talons.

"Someone get this gorram _tah mah de_ off me!"

Jayne went completely still when a flash of light pulsed and the man's head fell away from his cauterized neck. The body fell to the ground. "Gorram moon-brained witch!" Jayne screamed at River, who stood looking down at the body. "You dang-near killed me!"

"No I didn't," River said calmly.

"I thought we was wanting these _hoon-dah's_ alive!"

"He wasn't a man any more," River said. "Like a Reaver. But he wanted to die."

Mal watched the exchange with wide eyes, then turned back and stared at the woman. She looked young, barely out of her teens. Like the man she had strange growths protruding from her body. Only her growths were much smaller, as if just starting. She had none on her face, however her once pretty face had been terribly scarred along her cheeks and her forehead.

She crouched down in obvious terror as she looked at River's sword. "P…p…please… don't…kill…." She wasn't able to get anything else out.

Zoe knelt down beside the girl. "We're not here to hurt anyone," she said. "We're trying to understand what's happening."

"The monsters came," the girl said, speaking slightly better now. "They kilt me mom and pa. Kilt me baby brother. They stomped his head and laughed. Made Ma and Pa and me watch. They laughed and stomped my baby brother's head." She looked up at those around her. "What kinda folks do things like that?"

Mal knelt down to. "What's your name, _Mei-mei?_"

"I don't have a name," the girl said. "Monsters took me name away. Took everything."

"What're the monsters called?"

"Vong," the girl said, her voice dropping in terror as if the enemies would be able to hear her. "Praetorite Vong." She looked up at Mal. "Gonna kill us all. They came and took the whole world in a day. Those fought 'em died. Those surrendered mostly died. Rest they cut and put.." She looked with horror at her shoulder and the spur of white bone protruding from it. "Made me a monster too."

"We need to take her with us," River said.

"She's right," Quinlan added. "First person testimony of an invasion. And now we have a name for our enemies. Not Reavers, but Vong."

"Reavers!" The girl sat up. "Reavers here too. Vong feed us to 'em if we don't do right. Reavers like the Vong. Don't give me to the Reavers!"

Mal stood and looked down at the terrified girl, and then at the others. Slowly, he slipped off his brown coat and put it over her shoulders. "Come with us," he said. "We'll get you away from the monsters."

The girl nodded and suddenly started weeping. The weeping turned to convulsive sobs as Mal helped her to her feet.

Suddenly their coms beeped. "Mal, this is Inara. We've got problems."

"What kind?"

"Something scary is about twenty feet from you."

They spun around, and they could see it. A lone figure strode through the muddy fields. It stood taller than a normal man with a sloped back head and a face so wreathed in scars it looked as if it wore a mask. It wore a black jumpsuit with what appeared to be claws digging into its neck.

It did not appear to have a blaster, but it did carry a strange whip. The girl saw the approaching creature and screamed as she collapsed into a heap of terrified tears. Jayne knelt down, aimed his blaster rifle, and fired.

The blaster bolt struck the figure dead in the center of his chest and knocked him onto his back. He slowly regained his feet, however, none the worse for wear.

"Aim for his head," Zoe said.

"You think?" Jayne said acidly.

"Don't fire," Vos said. "This is a fact-finding mission. Let's find some facts."

Vos stepped from the edge of the trees with his lightsabers in hand. He moved forward to meet the approaching alien.

"You defile this place, Infidel," the creature hissed in stilted Basic. "You are not worthy to stand on this world."

"I have come to learn about you," Quinlan said. "Why do you grow your ships?"

The creature did not answer; rather he charged forward. His whip seemed to solidify as he swung it. Vos lit both his sabers and caught the charge in the cross of the two blades.

"Why do you murder the innocents?" Vos said as he kicked the Vong off.

The Vong stepped back, obviously surprised by the strength of the kick. "We show them the Truth of their lives. There is pain, and there is death. Those that are worthy die well as sacrifice to the gods. Those that are not die less well. But all will die."

He swung again. Vos parried the swing, stepped low, and brought his second saber around in a brilliant blow that bounced harmlessly off the creature's strange armor.

They exchanged more blows, and Mal felt the pit of his stomach drop when he saw how fast and how strong the alien was.

Still, Vos was a match for it, blow for blow.

"Perhaps you are worthy," the creature said. "You fight like a warrior. Your blood shall ensure our victory over the infidels. And when we have taken these worlds, we shall grow our craft until the worldships come and we can sweep across the galaxy and shape you as you should all be."

"I believe the rest of the galaxy may take issue with that," Vos said. The alien's staff darted at his head and suddenly released a spray of chemicals. The Jedi master bent and then somersaulted backward to avoid the spray. He then reached out a hand. The nearest fighter groaned as its stalk snapped and the whole ship fell over toward the Vong.

The alien warrior rolled clear. He came out of his roll exactly where Vos held his lightsaber, and impaled his head on the Jedi's blade. As the creature died, his staff softened into a serpent of some kind that hissed at Vos. The Jedi shoved the tip of his second saber into the open mouth, and the staff-serpent fell as dead as its master.

"Mal," Wash's voice said over their coms. "More company, on land and by air. A lot more company."

"We're coming," Mal said. "Jayne, help Vos carry the body. We're taking tall dark and ugly with us too."

They threw the body in the bed of the hovercar while the young girl rode in front between Mal and Zoe. River, Jayne and Quinlan climbed in back and stared down at the alien.

"That staff was alive," Vos said. "Their armor appears to be insect chitin, and maybe alive as well. Everything is organic."

As the car climbed the side of the mountain, Vos turned and saw dark shapes speeding over the muddy fields toward the mountain. In the pale blue skies, he saw dots descending toward them. The Vong knew they were there, and were determined not to let them escape.

They cleared the edge of the cliff and found _Serenity_ already hovering with engines lit. Her cargo ramp was invitingly open and Mal drove the hovercar directly in without hesitation. They had not even sat down on the deck floor when the wind of their passage howled through the still closing doors. Inara ran toward them. "Wash says alien ships are coming from all over!"

"Good thing he's moving us then," Mal said. "Zoe, Inara, get this girl to Simon."

Inara sucked in a breath at his tone, but then saw the girl herself. "_Wu de tyen ah,_" she whispered. She rushed to the girl's side and helped Zoe get her up the stairs.

The rest of them ran toward the bridge. They arrived to find Afolabi in the co-pilot's chair and Wash humming. "Hi," he said. He pointed to the horizon now crowded with incoming ships. "I don't think they liked us being here."

"Apparently not," Mal said.

Afolabi stood, but it was Vos who took his place. "What are you doing?" Mal said.

"I was a general," Vos said. "I've been using weapons consoles like this since you were in diapers."

Mal started to say something when one of the approaching ships fired a ball of glowing…stuff at them. "Shields up," Vos barked.

There was no flourish this time as Wash hit the switch. The ball of plasma struck them almost head on. Almost immediately the whole ship reverberated with return fire under Vos's competent hands. Large bolts of green energy poured out of the nose of the ship and struck the alien fighter directly. The fighter disappeared in a white plume of vapor just as Wash pulled the nose up and made for escape velocity.

"Is that an asteroid?" Mal asked as they caught sight of an object in low orbit. Balls of light started showering down on them almost as soon as they saw it.

"Answers that," the captain muttered.

Wash pulled _Serenity_ into a corkscrew pattern and poured on the thrust. The whole ship shuddered as it jumped forward. "Wow, I like those new engines," the pilot said. "With these I really am a leaf…"

"…Don't say it!" Zoe ordered.

Wash stopped, gulped, and nodded. Other asteroid-shaped ships appeared from all over.

"Those things are moving really fast," Mal noted.

"So are the fighters coming up on our tail."

From all the many moons around them, more of the rocky ships appeared, and all of them were firing. "There are more ships than the whole combined Alliance fleet," Mal said as he counted them at a glance.

"Plus that big thing they're growing up from Whitefall," Afolabi said.

Wash ignored them as he swerved to avoid enemy fire. "It's raining orange twinkle balls out there," he said as two of the shots clipped their shields.

Mal leaned forward and pointed at a small window of open space. "That's our best bet."

"That's where I'm going," Wash said. "We're going faster than she's ever gone before."

River watched the enemy ships collapsing around them. The Vong seemed also to realize where the sole escape window was. The enemy ships flew desperately toward them.

"We're not going to make it," she said.

"Force tell you that?" Mal said.

"No, physics," she said. "They have a more efficient vector of attack. Continue in this direction for twenty more seconds, and then turn 58 degrees to port."

"There's a ship right there."

"Won't be when it's time to go."

Ahead of them the enemy ships continued to grow larger and the plasma balls continued to rain down on them. "Almost like a game," Wash said. "If it weren't so damned scary!"

Suddenly the ship holding place where River told them to go disappeared and appeared a moment later directly in the middle of their original escape path. Without hesitation Wash spun the ship around in a hard turn and darted for the now window just as all the enemy ships collapsed behind them firing.

Plasma struck shields viciously as _Serenity_ sped away. "They're following us," Wash said. He stared down at his controls. "And they're catching up."

"As soon as you pass the gravity well you can jump to hyperspace," Vos said. "The navcomp has it ready."

Enemy fire filled space around them. The whole ship shuddered with each impact on their shields. A red light began glowing on Wash's panel. "I'm not sure," the pilot said, "but I think that means we've lost our shields."

"We're clear!" River said.

"Wash, go!" Mal ordered.

Without flourish or comment, Wash hit the button, and _Serenity_ flashed away into hyperspace.


	21. Messengers of Doom

Just to be different, author responses/comments will be at the end of the chapter. Thank you.

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Two: Messengers of Doom**

"Still feels wrong to just fly up to an Alliance ship," Mal said.

"They have to know what's happening," Vos said.

The two men stood alone on the bridge with Wash in the pilot's seat as they approached Walsingham's Alliance cruiser. The Operative did not fly one of the towered city-ships, but rather one of the beetle-shaped cruisers Afolabi himself favored during his term as Operative.

"We're cleared for docking," Wash said.

Mal patted the pilot's shoulder and turned to leave the bridge. Quinlan followed. As they emerged into the gantry over the cargo hold, they saw Inara walking toward them. She held a wickedly curved piece of bone in her hand.

"What is that?" Mal asked.

"A bone spur," Inara said. "Simon removed it from the girl's shoulders. They were grafted directly onto her skeleton. Someone cut her and put a seed in her bone so it would grow into this." Her voice thrummed with outrage and her eyes flashed dangerously.

Mal touched the spur a second before meeting her angry gaze. "That's why we're doing what we're doing."

They heard the metallic thud of the docking rings. Down in the cargo hold, Mal could see Zoe opening the air lock. Walsingham and a pair of Alliance intelligence officers stepped aboard.

"We have a whole buffet of scary stuff for you today," Mal announced as he walked down the stairs.

"So you're report said," Walsingham said. "I understand you've liberated a victim?"

"She's in the infirmary," Inara said.

"That's just the start," Mal said with a smug grin. "We got one of the bastards done it to her, as well."

Walsingham and both officers stared as Mal and Quinlan both finished coming down the stairs. They led the Operative and his escorts across the bay until they reached a cryo-unit. Mal opened it up and the Operative stared in open disbelief.

"They call themselves the Praetorite Vong," Quinlan said. "This creature was faster and stronger than a normal human. In fact, he would be a challenge to most Jedi knights. Your soldiers will be hopelessly outclassed if all their warriors are like this."

Mal pulled the data crystal out of his pockets. "Recordings from New Melbourne. They're building something big out of Whitefall's parts. Broke the gorram moon like an egg. And they have a lot of fighters."

"How many?" Walsingham said.

"I counted an average of sixty per square kilometer multiplied by the entire terrestrial surface of New Melbourne," Vos said.

The two intelligence officers visibly paled. "Then it's no longer a matter of defeating them," Walsingham said. "Now it's a matter of trying to contain them." He nodded to the two men, who started wheeling the cryo-unit to the airlock.

Above, Inara, Simon and Kaylee were helping the captured girl walk down the stairs. She moved slowly and winced with each step. "You're not going to kill her, are you?" Mal asked.

Walsingham looked up at her, then down at Mal. The others stared at Mal as if he were insane, all but Vos. "Dissecting her will be of little value," the Jedi said. "She has first-hand knowledge of the invasion. I should hope that should be enough. Doctor Tam has made a recording of all his findings."

The Operative nodded. "Very well, she won't be harmed. I can see she was heavily traumatized."

"Good," Mal said. "Have these critters gone any further?"

"They appear to have stopped advancing at the moment," Walsingham said. "Based on your findings it's safe to assume they are stockpiling materiel for a final thrust into the core worlds. We're going to have to start being more creative in our response to the invaders."

* * *

Three weeks later, _Serenity_ dropped from hyperspace on the edge of the New Melbourne planetary system with a suite of advanced sensors aimed at the terrestrial giant and its' moons. A few moments later, an Alliance heavy cruiser ripped out of hyperspace on the edge of the gravity well. The moment it appeared, it launched a hundred dart-shaped fighters and fired thousands of missiles at the planet surface.

The Vong response was stunning. Tens of thousands of fighters erupted from the many habitable moons of New Melbourne and opened up a savage barrage on the Alliance ship. As they engaged this first enemy, a second Alliance cruiser, this one the more common beetle-shaped heavy cruiser, also dropped out of hyperspace. This cruiser also launched a bevy of fighters and missiles at New Melbourne. A third ship dropped out of hyperspace a few minutes later, just as the first Alliance vessel erupted in a plume of short-lived fire.

As vast and dramatic as the Vong response was, they could not stop all of the missiles or fighters. Each fighter also carried a single weapon, and as Mal and the rest of the crew of the _Serenity_ watched, mushroom clouds began to blossom across the surface of the terrestrial giant.

In time, the battle ended. No Alliance personnel made it out. The whole system buzzed like a kicked ant hill with tens of thousands of fighters and larger ships searching for more enemies. In the meantime, New Melbourne itself burned.

"That's containment, huh?" Mal muttered. "That's what the bastards did at Shadow."

"There were no humans left on New Melbourne," Vos said. "It was already a dead world."

"Still not right," Mal said.

"We've been spotted," Wash said. "We're bugging out."

And so the next few weeks went. Planet after planet, always the same. They found human populations vastly depleted, and those that survived were mutilated and enslaved to serve in massive fields. Not all the fields were dedicated to ships, but they knew everything growing was going toward the war effort.

Always they left under heavy fire. On two separate occasions, they could not even land as the Vong increased their patrols.

The more they saw, the more somber the crew became. They spoke with muted voices. Mealtimes became quiet affairs. The laughter that was known to ring through the ship in the past was no more. They could find nothing to laugh about.

All this time, River grew larger. She was at six months now and her bulge was unmistakable. Her face glowed with a radiance all her own, and for the first time in her life she seemed utterly at peace.

The men on the ship stumbled over each other waiting on her. "It's sweet, really," Kaylee said to Inara as the two watched Quinlan Vos, Jedi Master, and Jayne Cobb, semi-literate mercenary, competing with each other to bring River Tam a glass of orange juice.

"Just proves that all men are nothing more than teddy bears," Inara said.

"Bears, at least," a new voice intruded on their conversation. They turned to see Afolabi step between them. "It is natural instinct to protect something one cherishes. Whether it be property or loved ones. But that instinct is easily overridden, and we see proof of that every week. Men are bears, ladies. Capable of gentleness and loving, or of the most savage acts imaginable."

The former Operative continued walking away toward his quarters.

"That was depressing," Kaylee said. "Now I'm depressed."

"Have some strawberries," Inara said. "That usually makes you feel better."

"Hmmm," Kaylee said with her eyes closed. "Strawberries and Simon would be even better."

Inara shrugged. "I think they're both available."

The young mechanic squealed in delight. "That's right. Bye!"

Suddenly Inara found herself alone in the galley, but not for long. Book shambled in and noticed her with a start and a guilty frown. Since Shadow, the shepherd was quiet, going about his chores in silence. He told the crew everything he could about the larger galaxy, but never again felt like a part of the family.

"Excuse me," he said as he turned to leave.

"Derrial, wait."

Book stopped and straightened his back. He slowly turned to face her.

"Please, sit with me. Talk for a little while."

With a nod, Book stepped to one of the cushioned benches lining the galley and sat down. "So how old were you when you came to the System?"

Book smiled wanly. "Too young, I'm afraid. I was young and arrogant in the superiority of my society. It took me many years to see that your society had things of value to offer me."

"Like your faith?"

"Faith," he agreed, "and other things. I wasn't allowed to participate in the Unification War, but I witnessed it first hand. For all the atrocities I saw, I also saw courage and determination, strength of character the likes of which seemed lost in my life. Do you know why the galactic civil war was called the Clone War?"

Inara shook her head.

"It was fought primarily between armies of robots we called Droids, and a vast army of clones. They called it the Army of One, since they were all clones of a single individual. Granted, there were a few officers who volunteered for service, but primarily only the Jedi and the clones fought. Whole worlds burned to cinders, and yet all the people of the galaxy fell back in cowardice and let the Jedi and clones fight. And when Palpatine turned the clones on the Jedi—the one group with the moral courage to lead—it left a galaxy full of sheep under the control of one man. No one stood up to him, Inara. No one had the courage to stand up and say, 'This is wrong!' Those few who tried were cut down. Yet, I think if something like that happened here, men like Mal would stand up, and they should shout, 'This is wrong' even if it meant their lives. And that's why I stayed here. And would have died in peace here, if not for the Vong."

It was the longest speech she had ever heard the Shepherd make, and it left her quiet. Slowly, she reached out and took his hand. "I'm sorry for what your emperor made you do."

Book's wan smile faded before a flash of pain. "There is a special place in hell for traitors. I betrayed him first for all of you, and then was forced to betray all of you for him."

"And yet you have shed your blood for us," Inara said. "You don't understand what Mal meant by that. I am just now understanding myself. Zoe knows. I think Master Vos knows as well. You are our brother now. For good or ill, no matter what horrors come, you are our brother. And you will always have a place on this ship."

Book's eyes took on a sheen and he had to look away a moment to compose himself. "Thank you, dear." He forced his smile to return. "So when will I finally get to have a role on this ship and marry you and Mal?"

Inara's smile grew sly. "I'll let you know."

**Author's Comments/Responses:**

**sandcrawlr**--Thank you.

**Elentari2112**--And what an ugly face it is.

**AngusH**--Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying the story. A Firefly/SW cross has some problems because of the inherent tech difference, so I didn't frame the story around a straight Firefly/SW battle, but rather a more insidious approach. I'm happy to see that it's worked for you.

**Roosterman71**--Thank you. Gotta give Wash something to play with.

Thank you all for reading. I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far. We have four or five more chapters to go. I hope you continue to enjoy to the end!


	22. Heaven is Falling

**Roosterman71**--I'm glad you liked it. After only one review, I'm starting to have flashbacks. Maybe this chapter will elicit a few more chapters. Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Two: Heaven Is Falling**

River lay snugly in the arms of her lover and dreamed.

In her dream, Book stood before her reading from his Blue Catholic Bible in a loud, strong voice. "'At the king's command, the men who falsely accused Daniel were brought forth and thrown into the lion's den, along with their wives and children. And even before they reached the floor of the den, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.'"

Behind him, massive human hands seemed to sweep across a blood-red sky. People piled in the palm of the hands, hundreds of thousands, all nude, like twisted images from a Hieronymus Bosch painting. The massive hands pushed them to the edge of cliff that seemed to form out of clouds, and people began calling to the surface below. They screamed and moaned as they fell, forming a chilling chorus and counterpoint to the Shepherd's words.

Waiting for them were Praetorite Vong, thousands of them, with their living staffs held up like pitch-forks and their strange bone-spurs protruding from their heads like devil horns.

Book ignored the carnage behind him and continued reading. "'…must fear and revere the God of Daniel, for he is the living God, and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed; his dominion will never end."

Behind Book, people began to fall through the skies. Somehow, though she was far from them, in her dreams she saw their faces clearly. Her mother, brother, all the friends she had as a young girl. She saw Jayne and Mal and Inara and Kaylee and the others falling as well. They called and reached for her as they fell, but she could do nothing.

The blood-red sky grew black, and she heard an old voice cackling even as Book continued to read. "'And there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large, iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left."

Behind the Shepherd, one of the massive pale hands came down and slammed against the Earth, crushing both Vong and the victims of the Vong. The surface shook and cracked apart.

"'…As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened."'

A river of green light flowed from between the hands and struck the surface of the planet. Lost souls cried out, both those of the enemy and those of the victims, as the ground caught fire. Still, Book stood unscathed. He stared at her and let the Bible fall from his hands though he continued reciting. "'In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed."

The green fire engulfed Book. River watched helplessly as his skin was flayed away from his body, and then all was lost in the fire. Only the massive hands and the darkness remained.

From the midst of the darkness, a single point of light emerged. River realized, startled, that it was a lightsaber. A single green lightsaber, holding back the darkness and the pale hands.

That is when River woke up, and realized the end was coming.

"The Vong have begun moving in force," Defense Minister Valorum said. "We believe our strategic strikes slowed them down, but there was never a hope of us stopping them. We know that now."

"What's the situation?" Mal asked the holographic image of the minister. The whole crew gathered in the galley where Mal placed the holonet receiver.

"We have lost the entire First, Second, Fifth and Sixth Fleets. We are now concentrating solely on civilian evacuations and pulling back to the inner most core worlds. We can't fight them—the best we can hope for is to flee from them."

"What do the enemy numbers look like?" Vos asked.

"It's difficult to say, Master Jedi. However, they attacked forty moons and worlds in a single strike and took every one despite our attempts to hold them." Valorum looked old, and very, very tired. "I understand the civilian losses have been unimaginable. Whole worlds are being sacrificed."

"Is there nothing we can do?" Inara asked.

"Pick up as many refugees as you can, and get them to Londinum," Valorum said. "Because your ship has been hyperspace enabled, you'll be able to make more runs than any but our top military ships."

"And where is Blue Sun in all this?" Book asked.

"I don't know," Valorum admitted. "They have their own fleet of ships, but we haven't had contact with them. They are no longer attempting to coordinate efforts with us. And be warned, Captain, they are still after you."

"Always good to hear I'm wanted," Mal said.

"Greenleaf is where we are currently trying to evacuate as many civilians as possible," Valorum said.

"They're that far core-ward?" Wash said.

"They will be shortly," Valorum said. "I know it is out of place here, Captain, but I truly hope that the Force is with you in your efforts."

"I appreciate the sentiment, Minister," Mal said.

The image disappeared. Mal stepped forward and turned to face the crew. "Well, I don't see a lot of options here. We save who we can."

The others nodded their assent in silence. As the meeting broke up, River looked down at her dome-like stomach. It had been almost eight months now—32 weeks. She could see a bulge in her skin as her daughter kicked aggressively. The atmosphere touched the child in the Force as surely as it did through her mother's blood.

Vos noticed River lingering and turned to kneel down. "What troubles you?"

River looked up and could not hide the tears. "I dreamed this morning." Her hand sought his, and he held onto her desperate grip. "It's coming. I'm not sure we're going to have enough time."

"We'll make time," Vos said.

They arrived at Greenleaf three days later, but they were late.

The Vong were already there. Two massive, rocky ships stood just off the planetary horizon while fighters darted at will across the planet. The fleet of Alliance ships there to evacuate citizens fought valiantly.

All effort to hide Galactic technology had been abandoned. The Alliance ships deflected plasma bursts with shields, and in addition to missiles and torpedoes threw bolts of green turbolasers at the enemy.

Mal knew the moment he saw the exchange that it was not going to be enough. "Looks like the evacuation point is at Petersville," Wash said. "Alliance ground forces are trying to hold a delaying action for the civilians." He looked up at Mal. "Not sure how long they're going to hold out. Do we go?"

Mal looked around the bridge at his crew. "With the new power plant and scrubbers, we could save a good number of people."

"We have to go," Book said. "I'll stay behind if it means saving people."

All eyes turned to him, and everyone there knew he meant it. "Probably won't come to that," the captain said. "Go, Wash. Contact the Alliance cruisers with our new ID and let them know we're coming to help in the evacuation."

"Shields are up, we're going in," Wash said.

"I'll be in engineering," Kaylee said.

"I'll be in my bunk," Jayne announced.

"Not this time, Jayne," Mal said. "Zoe, take Loverboy there down with Book and Afolabi to the hatch. Grab Inara too. Go armed. Those folks are gonna wanna be on board come hell or high water. We get over a hundred-fifty, one-seventy five on this boat, we're not takin' off."

Zoe nodded. "Got it. Come on, boys."

Vos took his position at weapons and looked back at River. She sat in a second navigation chair while the others left the bridge.

Almost immediately they were engaged by a pair of Vong fighters. Vos opened up with laser cannons, only to have his shots somehow sucked into nothingness. "Their shields," the Jedi muttered. His fingers flew over the controls as Wash spun and dipped and rose through the billows of explosions and the contrails of smoke that marked the no-man's land between the two fleets.

The ship shuddered violently. "Sorry, that was one of ours," Wash muttered.

Vos fired again, and Mal noticed the laser cannons fired much faster than before, but seemed to do less. One of the fighters Wash managed to get behind veered as little pelts of red energy struck. At that instant Vos fired the heavy torbolasers, the fighter disappeared.

"Their shields react to any energy with the same response," the Jedi said. "If we vary energy levels, we can exhaust the shielding without depleting our weapons."

Mal nodded and then looked as a pair of Alliance fighters erupted in flame. "I wonder if the Alliance knows that?"

Vos's fingers flew over the console as he sent out the message. "They do now."

They hit the atmosphere at nearly full speed. The shock of impact was enough to almost knock them from their seats. Mal muttered a Chinese curse while Wash just held on while flying on the edge of his seat. "There's Petersville!" he said.

The city was burning in a hundred places. Greenleaf was not a core world, but rested on the edge and was thoroughly civilized. The capital city was easily five million strong, and took up the majority of a valley resting between two flat-topped mesas ranges.

Coming up the wide river that made the valley and provided power and water to the city were massive, lumbering beasts that seemed to be spewing fire from long snouts. "_Tian xiz shou you de ren dou gai si_," Mal whispered. "What are those things?"

"Whatever they are, the Alliance tanks aren't doing too much to them," Wash noted.

They saw a line of Alliance tanks firing rapidly at the strange creatures even as they backed up toward the city. The artillery and tank shells exploded without apparent effect against the fire-breathing monstrosities.

"Let's see if they like turbolaser fire," Vos muttered. He aimed and fired a burse of five shots on the fire-breather nearest the city. The green bolts sank into the creature. It seemed almost to suck into itself like a hot-air balloon for a moment before it exploded violently. The explosion was so strong the firebreather next to it stumbled against the blast and fell side-ways into a smoldering forest of burnt tree-trunks.

They waited for an explosion from the second one. Instead, its long, gangling legs shuffled, and then lifted its bulbous body back to its incredible height.

_Serenity_ continued past the line of tanks to the city. They could see what had to be the enemy infantry tearing through the outer edges of the city while the defenders continued to fall back. Finally they saw an Alliance shuttle lifting off from a field near the capital and knew that was where they had to go.

"This is Alliance control to _Shadow Valley_. We received your offer of assistance. We've lit field 23 for your landing. Look for the green flares."

Mal picked up the hand-held. "Alliance control, we roger. We estimate we can carry up to 175 max. Repeat, 175 max."

"Roger, _Shadow Valley._ That's better than our shuttles. We're getting pounded and will have to withdraw shortly. We're glad you're here."

"We're not," Mal said. "But we'll do what we can."

"Acknowledged."

Wash had already found the green flare and was bringing the ship down. Mal turned and ran for the docking hold with Vos a step behind, while River stayed in her seat. Wash turned his seat as soon as they landed and looked at her. "So, any names for the baby?" he asked.

She grinned weakly. "I was thinking 'Bad Timing' or 'Unfortunate' myself. Maybe 'Bitter.'"

"Hmm, happy names," Wash said. "You could name her 'Woe is me.' Woeisme. That could work."

River chuckled, and then fell still. "Wash?"

"Yeah?"

"Make love to your wife tonight. And every night." She paused in consideration of another thought. "I have to pee."

Wash's jaw dropped as River ponderously picked herself up out of the chair and left the bridge.

Outside, chaos ruled the day. Mal stepped down the ramp and felt as if he were under assault. Crowds of thousands charged the hastily erected fence surrounding the capital building. Lines of Alliance soldiers stood with weapons at the ready as they tried desperately to control the influx of refugees.

As Mal stood watching, a huge ball of plasma seared through the sky and struck half a mile away. The shockwave of hot air made the people scream even louder as ash and debris started to rain down on them. Zoe was already on the ground talking with one of the Alliance soldiers. A moment later, a line of the refugees started moving toward the ship.

Afolabi, Book and Inara stood in a line motioning people up the ramp. They came quickly; the smell of their fear was astringent and as strong as the smoke of the burning city.

"Come in and go to the back of the hold!" Mal ordered. "No large luggage. There's not going to be any spare room, so don't bother hogging any of it. Pick a spot and sit your butts down!"

Vos arrived too, and also began directing people into the ship. Mal noticed that around the Jedi the fear seemed to dissipate a little, as if somehow he were calming them with his strange power.

Mal realized this was probably exactly what Vos was doing.

He heard a distant scream and looked up. In the pale blue sky, he could see what looked like a puff of cauliflower. It lasted only a moment, but he knew what it meant. In confirmation, an Alliance officer came running up the ramp.

"Captain!"

"Yeah?"

"We're pulling out," the officer said. He was in his early forties, with unusually long black hair and a small goatee. "Mind if I catch a ride?"

"Only if you don't mind sitting on the floor with the rest."

The officer shrugged. "I'll take what I can get." He then turned and also assisted in getting the terrified refugees in the ship. Mal eyed the floor with narrow eyes as another huge ball of plasma came down. This came down closer, and the heat and shock of the explosion was enough to steal his breath for a moment.

"That's it," Mal called. "Any more, we're not lifting off!"

Immediately those in the front of the line starting yelling in terror and pushing against the Alliance soldiers restraining them. Some offered money, others offered their own children. Mal shook his head and waived for Zoe and Jayne to back onto the ramp. Across the field, Mal saw Alliance soldiers running away from the fence toward the last shuttles on the surface. On the other side of the fence stood tens of thousands, a crowd so thick he could not see its end.

"They're all gonna die," Zoe said as the ramp started to lift.

"Yes they are," Mal said blackly. He grabbed the intercom hand piece. "Wash, get us up."

"We're as heavy as River is," the pilot said. "And we've got people crawling on top of the ship."

"They're fall off eventually," Mal said darkly. "Lift off." He eyed the refugees. "Zoe, I want you and Jayne armed and on the steps. These people need to stay in the hold."

He started toward the stairs when someone in the crowd screamed. Mal looked up just in time to see a man flying over the crowd toward him with a large, viciously-curved knife. Almost at the same moment, a flying lightsaber soared through the air and sliced cleanly through the attacker's middle. The saber turned in mid-air like a boomerange and returned to the hand that threw it.

Ignoring the screams of those around him, Vos calmly stepped out from the crowd and knelt down next to the man. "What in the 'verse is this?" Mal demanded.

Vos stared at the dead man for a long time, before he reached out and touched a spot by his nose. Instantly the man's skin peeled back to expose the scarred, sloping features of a Praetorite Vong.

"I couldn't sense this one in the Force," Vos explained.

Mal nodded. "Good thing, too." Mal turned to the crowd and singled out two of the nearest men. "You two, make yourselves useful and throw this Vong trash out the air lock."

The men looked squeamish, but the angry glint in Mal's eye and the utter command in his voice overwhelmed their hesitation, and they did as asked. Everything looked like it was going to calm down when the ship rocked violently and everyone screamed again.

Mal started running up the stairs with Vos a step behind. He paused before the top and looked down into the thickly packed crowd. "Listen up!" he shouted. "We got a lot of fire between us and the black. You sit down, you shut up, and let us do our jobs and try and save you. Do not get up on these stairs. If you do, we will shoot you. We ain't here to be thanked or be your friends. We're here to do a job."

He turned and continued toward the command deck.

Space beyond looked unpleasant. "The Vong are shooting down the shuttles," Wash noted. The last Alliance cruiser was out-gassing all over. Each plume of lost atmosphere evidenced itself by a tongue of flame that lasted only as long as the air feeding it. However, it continued firing at the fighters around it in a last ditch effort to save the shuttles.

"I'll give these Alliance folk credit," Mal said softly. "They're fightin' a good fight."

Plasma struck their shields. Wash spun the ship in a corkscrew. Vos immediately resumed his seat and started firing at the Vong fighters that darted by them.

The ship shuddered again. "Loosing shields," Wash said.

"How long 'til we can jump?" Mal asked.

"Ten seconds," Wash said.

"We got bugs coming in," Vos noted.

Mal grabbed the com. "Kayle, we got locusts. Electrify the hull."

The ship shook even more violently. "That shot got through," Wash said. "We've got hull damage. We're loosing air."

"_Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze fuh ur-tze,_" Mal cursed. "Where?"

"EVA hatch top deck," Wash said.

The captain ran down to the gantry as Wash spun to avoid another series of hits. The ship rocked again. "That just hit our port thruster."

"We've cleared the well," Vos said.

"Then we're gone!" Wash hit the switch, and _Serenity_ burst into hyperspace.


	23. The Dark Side

**Enfleurage--**Thank you for the nice feedback. I have four chapters or so to go. I promise there will be hope at the end of this story.

**Roosterman71**--Thanks, I was grinning when I was able to fit at allusion in myself.

**dude**--It's going to get worse yet, as well!

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Three: The Dark Side**

Kaylee took off her EVA helmet and then bent over and vomited on the deck plating. Simon was there by her side, an arm draped around her EVA suit. "It's okay," he whispered to her.

"That much fun, eh?" Mal said.

"I hate going EVA," Kaylee finally managed to say as she pulled herself out of the suit with desperate speed. "I just don't got no stomach for it."

"I can see that," Mal said. "You got it fixed?"

Kaylee wiped her lip on her grease-stained forearm and nodded.

"Good girl," the captain said. He pulled a small wooden box from behind his back. "These are the last. You earned them."

He didn't need to say what they were, and Kaylee didn't need to look. She merely nodded and accepted the gift. Mal walked back through the galley until he stood on the gantry looking down at the people below. He stood beside Zoe and Vos while Jayne, Book and Afolabi kept an eye out on them from one level down.

"We're another day out from Londinum," he said to Zoe. "We're 'bout out of food already."

"We counted a hundred and eighty-two people," Zoe said. "Scrubbers are straining."

"Yeah, I can smell it. Open the hatches to the shuttles and turn their scrubbers on too."

"Already done," Zoe said.

Mal looked over at Vos. "And what're you thinking, oh Great and Wise one?"

Vos knew the captain well enough after the last eight months to smile at the prod. "That the Dark Side clouds everything."

"That mean you don't know squat more'n the rest of us?"

"Pretty much," Vos admitted.

Mal nodded and stepped down to the first flight over the bay. "All right, listen up," he yelled. "My name is Captain Mal Reynolds. This is my boat. We're not Alliance. We're moving you because it's the right thing to do. But we ain't military, and that's a problem." He took a deep breath. "Your breakfast this morning used up pretty much all my stores. We ain't got no more food. Our air scrubbers were built for max occupancy of 175. We count a hundred eighty-two of you plus my crew. So in case any of you were thinking about doing any jumping jacks, I'd encourage you to do otherwise."

That managed to elicit a few chuckles.

"Here's how it is, people. We're a day out from Londinum. No food, no water, but we're only a day out. Whole 'verse is hard up, but you're better off than those poor souls we left behind. So be patient, don't bother complaining 'cause we're just as hungry and thirsty as you are. And know we'll get you to Londinum in one piece."

The people said nothing, but their eyes followed Mal back up the steps. It was a girl, maybe ten, toward the back, who spoke first. "Thank you, Sir!"

Mal paused as more thanks came from the crowd. He smiled briefly, felt his cheeks go red, and continued up the stairs. "Now I'm all teary-eyed," he said to no one in a cold voice that belied the fact that he was, in fact, teary-eyed.

Londinum was not the same world they left. The planet was surrounded by massive weapons platforms and ships of every description. The nearby moon bristled with weaponry visible even from _Serenity_'s re-entry trajectory. Thousands of small civilian ships huddled in closely-lumped orbits that gave the planet an artificial ring.

The crew said nothing as planetary control cleared them for re-entry and landing at one of the man refugee camps. Wash followed the path and brought them down through the atmosphere and flew over the cityscapes until they reached a city that did not exist when they first arrived.

It was a city of tents and small modular units stacked five high where the land allowed. The field stretched for kilometers, with one entire patch dedicated to the landing and offloading of ships. Wash saw a man with directional batons and followed those instructions until he came to a quick landing.

Mal was on the deck of the cargo hold by the time the ramp dropped down. Instantly a line of five Alliance soldiers met him. He squashed his gut reaction and instead nodded to them. They returned the nod and started guiding people out of the ship to a series of processing stations.

The last to leave was the officer they picked up on Greenleaf. The man offered a hand. "Thank you for your help, Captain. I have to admit, you're not what I expected."

Mal blinked. "What were you expecting?"

The man smiled. "Hard to say."

He walked off the ship. A moment later, Mal felt Vos standing beside him. "That man is Blue Sun," the Jedi said.

Mal blinked. "What, now?"

"He was one of the contractors who transported me into this system. George or something like that, I think his name was. We've been identified."

"Why didn't you kill him?"

"He posed no threat," Vos said. "He'd already sent his signal while on Greenleaf. Killing him would have further upset the passengers, and they were at the limit as it was."

Before Mal could order them to lift off, Walsingham suddenly appeared with a cadre of soldiers. "Well ain't this just a fit of good timing," the captain said. "What do you want?"

"Minister Valorum asked that you and your crew come to his office. It is very important."

"Blue Sun knows we're here," Mal said. "What if we say no?"

"Then your ship will be fired upon in orbit," Walsingham said. "You do not refuse a request from the Minister. A car is waiting for us."

"I'll go get the others," Vos said. He turned and paused when he saw River coming ponderously down the stairs. She looked more pale than normal and he noticed a slight shaking in her hand. When he felt for her Force presence, he noticed she had her shields clamped down tight.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Pregnant," was all she said.

"Yes."

Walsingham's large hovervan once more took them to the Parliament Building, and once more they found themselves under guard walking down a long hallway. When they finally reached Valorum's office, they found the minister reading intently. He was pale and thinner than the last time they saw him, with dark rings under his eyes.

"Captain, guests, please come in," he said in his sonorous voice. The crew shuffled in.

Once they were seated, the minister and former Chancellor of the Galactic Republic sighed. "I've lost."

"Lost what?" Mal asked.

Valorum tossed the paper he was reading on the desk. "You. Your whole society. The Vong have taken every world in the system. This report is from our forces of Sihnon. It has fallen. Londinum is next. They should be here in a matter of hours."

Mal felt his heart skip a beat. "What'll you do?" he asked.

Valorum reached in his desk and removed a black square about the size of Mal's hand. "Master Vos will know what do to with this. It's a galactic map of coordinates for planets and hyperspace lanes. With a hyperspace-enabled ship, you can flee anywhere in the galaxy you want. Your ship has already been re-provisioned and then sealed until your return." His shoulders slumped. "For your help, that is all I have to offer you."

"What about all these people?" Zoe demanded, her eyes flashing.

"Doomed," Valorum said. "Like me. The best you can hope for is…" A distant explosion interrupted him. "Surely they haven't arrived yet!"

A moment later Walsingham ran through the door and closed it behind him. "Blue Sun agents are attacking the capital," he said. "They are accompanied by soldiers in unknown white armor carrying blasters."

Mal noticed how Valorum and Vos exchanged looks. "The Empire has arrived," Vos said. "His Dark Jedi is here as well."

"Palpatine is interceding directly then," Valorum said. He slumped in his seat. "It was only a matter of time, I suppose."

"If it saves the people, maybe it's for the best," Book said. "Better alive under an Empire than dead before the Vong."

"You're assuming the Empire can stop them," Vos said. "I'm not even sure of that."

"We have to go, now!" Walsingham said.

The whole group hurried through the other door of the office into the command center. Mal felt his stomach drop when he saw it was completely empty. All the screens were still on, but held nothing but static. Was it really that bad? Had the end come so quickly?

Valorum led the way with Walsingham by his side. They reached the far door of the command center. The Operative opened the door and Valorum stepped forward.

River and Vos both felt the surge of dark-side energy, but it was too late. A blade of red energy sliced effortlessly through the minister's chest. Valorum said nothing as he fell first to his knees, and then lifelessly to the floor.

Walsingham responded with trained speed and effectiveness, but then fell as well—one piece of him by the minister, the other to the floor nearby.

"River, you've changed," the man calling himself Bane said as he stepped calmly into the command center. "I can feel the baby. She wants to be born. Have your contractions started yet?"

Everyone turned and stared at River's pale face. "Yes," she admitted.

"Delicious. My master wanted you so badly, River. But the Force tells him the child will be better. I shall be elevated if I bring that child to him. He'll destroy his current apprentice and escalate me." He looked at the others with a sneer. "Give me the mother and child, and the rest of you can go free."

Quinlan Vos stepped forward. "Come and take her," he said.

Bane's eyes narrowed. "To kill a Jedi would truly prove my worth in my master's eyes." Through the Force, Vos felt the odd shift as Bane's playful banter sank into the cold machine-like warrior.

"Back up," Mal ordered. They started backing up, only to stop when River cried out.

The captain stared incredulously. "You meant to tell me that _huh choo-shang tza-jiao duh tzang-huo_ was telling it right? That baby's coming?"

"River," Simon said urgently. "It's not time yet. You're only at thirty-two weeks."

"Thirty-three now," River said. Behind them, a red lightsaber flashed against a blue and a green one as Bane and Vos fought. "I'm sorry. It's all my fault. I'm so sorry." Words failed as a new contraction came.

"River, how far apart are the contractions?" Simon asked. Ignoring the others, he reached under River's dress. "My God, you're water must have broken before we even left the ship. You're almost fully dilated. Why didn't you tell us?"

"Because it wouldn't matter," River said. "She has to be born. If she's not born, we'll all die!"

An explosion drew their attention to the duel. Vos kicked Bane across the floor into one of the many static-filled monitors. The dark-sider rolled quickly to his feet and threw a bolt of blue force lightning at Vos, who easily intercepted it and shot it right back at the startled Bane.

"I think that boy's going to get his ass kicked," Mal muttered. "Doc, what can we do?"

"Back up and give me some room," Simon said. He looked up, and Mal, Kaylee and the rest saw terror on his face for the first time. "It's coming too fast. The baby is coming too fast!"

Bane screamed from across the room as he flew through the air at Vos. The Jedi rolled away and engaged the dark-sider with both blades.

Simon put his hand on River's sweaty forehead. "_Mei-mei_, don't force this! Don't hurt yourself!"

She smiled up at him through her pain. She grabbed his hand and kissed his fingers. "You saved me, Simon," she whispered. "You saved me. Now I'm going to save you all. She has to come out. The Darkness is coming. She has to be born."

Simon looked up at the people who had become his family over the past year, until finally his eyes fell on Kaylee. She nodded imperceptibly. "Everyone get on that side," she said.

Inara knelt down beside him. "I've midwifed before," she said.

Simon merely nodded as he flipped River's dress over her bulging stomach and ripped away her soaking undergarment. "She's already breeching," Simon whispered in awe.

The whole building shuddered under another series of explosions as Parliamentary guards and Alliance soldiers tried to defend the capital against this new threat. Jedi master and dark side disciple fought viciously through the command center, one fueled by determination, the other by rage and hate. And River Tam screamed.

"Push, River!" Simon urged.

"It hurts!" River said as she grabbed Kaylee's and Inara's hands.

"The baby is coming now," Simon said. "I can see her hair. You have to push now!"

Across the floor, Bane grinned darkly. "My ascension is arriving. Does it bother you, Jedi, that you will never see your little girl grow up?"

"Does it bother you that Palpatine will never elevate you? I know from Count Dooku what Darth Sidious seeks in his apprentice. The Dark Side is strong with you, but you will never been Sith."

"We shall see!" Bane roared as he dashed forward.

It was the moment Vos had been waiting for. Throughout the duel he gauged not just Bane's speed and strength, but also his mind. He fought with grace and speed, and there was no denying his power. But his youth betrayed him, and his rage made him reckless.

As the young man soared through the air, Vos called on his own Dark Side power and unleashed a torrent of Force lightning that caught Bane in mid-leap. The young dark sider screamed as the power ripped through his body.

He continued forward and fell on weakened legs just as Vos spun his sabers. There were no last words or dramatic epithets. One moment Bane lived, the next he did not. The man's head rolled away as his body collapsed where it landed.

The Jedi master took a deep breath before he sighed, hooked his sabers to his belt, and ran for River.


	24. The Dark Lord of the Sith

**Notorious JMG**--Bane was just the appetizer. Kind, your words are, review more, you must ;) Thanks for reading!

**bladefax**--Will do, here's the next chapter.

**sandcrawlr**--Ewok ninjas! D'oh! I should have thought of that. Thanks!

**Elentari2112**--I'm glad that worked for you. Vos definitely owned Bane, but his brush against the Dark Side is not over. And believe it or not, Inara has as much to do with the naming of the child as River. You'll see uin this chapter.

**Roosterman**--Thank you. I promise here and now that not all of them will end up dying.

**Tarva**--I admit this story could have benefited from a good beta reader, but I've been overloading all the beta readers around me, and now it's almost done. Still, I appreciate you reading!

Thank you all for reading and the kind reviews!

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Four: The Dark Lord of the Sith**

"This is Alliance control to unknown vessels, identify yourself!" The young lieutenant, a man named John Dobson, stood in the orbital control station in Londinum's second moon. He managed to maintain a semblance of calm as the first unknown ships arrived. The calm quickly eroded as the first few turned into dozens, and then hundreds. He was nearly screaming now as the unknown ships continued to appear in staggering numbers.

When the ships stopped arriving, his sensors recorded over a thousand contacts. Some were dagger shaped, with vivid white and red-striped hulls and towers at the end. Some were utilitarian gray. Other ships were long and vicious-looking, while still others looked like interrupted rings with massive spheres at one end. The sky around Londinum filled with the ships in such numbers and of such size that the surviving Alliance fleet seemed dwarfed in comparison.

Finally, the Dobson's transmitter beeped as a signal came in. It was a signal of such strength and bandwidth that it shot across the whole planet and all the ships in orbit, overwhelming all other com and Cortex traffic. "People and military forces of the Sino-Anglo Alliance, this is Admiral Wilhuff Tarkin of the Galactic Empire. We have received your distress signals and analyzed the situation. In an effort to save your people, we are taking command of this conflict. Soldiers are landing on your planet to coordinate surface defenses. Do not resist them. We are here to save you, but we will brook no disobedience in these efforts. All Alliance ships are to remain in orbit. You cannot assist us. Tarkin out."

One ship emerged from the massive fleet much larger than the rest. Beside the lieutenant, a targeting tech whistled. "That ship is almost a mile long."

The lieutenant stared at the massive gray machine with a sense of awe. It was shaped like a dagger, similar to many of the other ships, with an aft command tower topped by two large domes. It was the most terrifying ship outside of the Vong he had ever seen.

"Who are these people?" the young officer asked.

* * *

"You're almost there, River!" Simon said. Kaylee now knelt behind the doctor, while Vos held River's right hand. Inara remained to hold the mother's left.

Behind them, Zoe, Jayne, Afolabi, Book and Mal were left to watch the entrances and exits as elsewhere in the building they could hear the sounds of battle.

River was breathing fast as she pushed and pushed. The miracle happened in a sudden rush. The others heard a mewling sound that turned into a wet, wonderful cry. Simon stared down at the child in awe for a moment, and then began cleaning it with towels Jayne had grabbed from the command center's bathrooms.

He looked down and then quickly handed the baby over to Kaylee. "River, you're bleeding out," he said.

She ignored her brother. She even ignored the baby. Instead, she looked up at Vos. "He's coming," she whispered. "If he finds me alive, all will be lost. If he loses, all will be lost."

"Who?" Vos asked. Then he felt it—a brilliant spot of darkness in the Force, stronger than anything he had felt before. He looked up but could see nothing.

"River, use the Force," Simon said. "Use anything. You've got to stop the bleeding!"

She smiled at her brother. "Can I see her? Where's my baby?"

Kaylee handed the bundle over, and River smiled with tears in her eyes. "Hello, _bao bei_," she whispered as she touched the baby's cheek. "I wish I had something to give you to remember me by."

"What are you talking about?" Inara asked.

The door to the command center exploded in a shower of sparks. Men covered head-to-toe in white armor poured into the room. They took positions with blaster rifles pointed at the small party, but they did not approach any farther.

Vos felt his eyes watering as he looked down at River. Her face had become bone-pale as her blood loss continued. "I'm sorry I can't keep you," she whispered to the little girl.

Inara stared from the soldiers, to Vos's stricken face, down to River and the baby. Suddenly she understood, but with understanding came a terrible grief. Resolutely, she removed her necklace—the one River admired so much—and placed it around the baby's neck. "This is my gift to you, River," she said. "And your gift to her."

River looked up at the Companion and smiled weakly tears streamed openly down her cheeks. "Thank you," she whispered.

"I can't stop the bleeding!" her brother said, his voice on the edge of panic. Simon turned to the white-armored soldiers and yelled in Corlingua, "I need medical supplies!"

The soldiers did not respond.

"River!" Vos said. He gripped her hand and started to funnel the Force to her. River shook her head, though.

"Not yet," she whispered. "You can't save me now. If I live, all is lost. I love you." She closed her eyes, and her hand fell limply from his.

A growl built in the back of Quinlan Vos's throat, but then slowly died. In the silence that followed, they became aware of a new sound. Distant at first, it quickly approached from the shattered door of the command center. A deep, hissing _huoooo-burrr_ sound unlike anything any of them had heard before.

All eyes looked up as a moving, living shadow filled the door to the dimly lit command center. They saw a helmet, and a long, dramatic black cape. They saw odd lights blinking and shining on a chest plate and a belt.

They saw a red lightsaber, pulsing in the shadows.

Vos looked down at the still, silent River, and then stood and stepped forward.

"You will not have them," he said.

"Master Quinlan Vos," the dark creature said. His voice emerged as a metallic basso that boomed through the small space. "My master warned me you were here. But it is of little matter. The girl and her child are the Emperor's. I have come for them alone."

"Over my dead body."

"I believe that was the intent," the creature said.

The whole room exploded. There was simply no other way to describe what happened. Computer terminals the size of hovercars ripped from their bolts in the floor. Display panels heavier that five men combined flew from their wall mounts. All of it flew like a storm directly to Vos.

The Jedi master stomped his foot down and yelled at the incoming projectiles. Terminals and display screens shattered and everything stopped and flew away in a shower of debris. It was at that moment that the dark creature struck.

"We got to get out!" Jayne hissed. He looked up to the door leading to Valorum's office, just in time to see that door also explode in a shower of sparks. More of the white-armored soldiers appeared, with a newcomer. It was the supposed Alliance officer who caught a ride with them from Greenleaf.

There were no other exits.

With little choice, the crew of _Serenity_ watched as the Jedi fought this new creature of darkness.

* * *

Every one of Lieutenant Dobson's perimeter early warning systems went off. He looked at the deep space scanners and felt his stomach clench. "We have enemy forces in-bound. I'm reading….my God. Thousands of ships."

The targeting tech shook her head as the lead elements of the Praetorite Vong invasion force engaged the lead elements of the Imperial armada.

Although Dobson would not have been able to identify the ring-shaped ships, the former Trade Federation _Lucrehulk_-class battleships led the first engagement. Left over from the Clone Wars and granted by the peace treaty to the Empire, the former Confederacy ships remained a potent weapon as they surged forward and launched thousands of _Scarab_ and _Vulture_ class droid star fighters.

The Vong fighters and frigate and cruiser analogues responded with a solid sheet of plasma fire.

Batteries of heavy turbo-lasers opened without restraint as the battle was joined. Three unfortunate Alliance vessels did not clear the battlefield in time and were pulverized in seconds by the crossfire.

Without the programming to adapt to the Vong's unique shields, the droid fighters had little chance against the enemy fighters. The larger frigate- and destroyer-analogues drew closer and started pelting the former CIS ships to pieces.

* * *

"You fight like a Jedi," Vos said. "A Jedi deprived of limbs. Is there anything alive under that armor?"

"There is enough," the dark creature said. They exchanged a rapid, deadly series of blows that each deflected. "You will die this day, Jedi, and I shall have my master's prize."

"That's what Bane said."

"Bane was a failed experiment. The successful experiment is behind you."

Vos twisted and slipped a vicious side-kick through the creature's defenses. He stumbled back against one of the few remaining terminals in the ground as Vos pressed his advantage.

"Before I kill, you, I shall have your name," Vos said.

"Darth Vader," the creature said. "But I will not die this day."

He held out a hand. Vos gripped his throat as the Force-choke lifted him from his feet. He Force-pushed against Vader, but the Dark Lord shrugged the effort off. "Only now do you begin to understand," he said. His deep voice ground against Vos's soul. "You were so close to achieving it, under Lord Tyrannus. But you failed, Vos. You chose the light. And it is the light that leaves you too weak to save your love. The light is always too weak to save those we love."

Vader gestured. Vos flew toward the dark lord. He flashed his saber and scored Vader's armor, but could not stop the red blade as it seared through his torso. Vos stood transfixed as the red lightsaber burned through him. "You are the last," Vader whispered. "Just another dead Jedi."

He deactivated his blade and stepped back to watch as Vos fell to his knees, and then to the floor. Through the Force, Vader felt the Jedi's heart stop. Only then did he turn his attention to the crew of the _Serenity._

Mal started forward to stand between the dark creature that called itself Darth Vader, and the rest of the crew. He stopped when he felt a hand grab his arm; he looked up into the face of Derriel Book. "You can't stop this," the Shepherd said urgently. "If you confront him, you'll die."

Book stepped forward as the rest remained frozen by the cold, artificial gaze of the Dark Lord. "Lord Vader," Book said. "The girl is dead. She died in childbirth."

"You are the one called Book," Vader said as he stepped closer. Around them the ring of soldiers collapsed inward. "The Emperor is most displeased with your apparent lack of loyalty."

"I had little choice. My identity was discovered," Book said. He slowly knelt down to where Inara held the child. "For all our sakes," he whispered, "I have to do this."

"You're giving her to a monster," the companion hissed.

Book shook his head. "River saw this. You heard her. She had this child to save our lives."

"How can you know that?"

Book smiled at her weakly, then reached down and touched River's pale cheek. "I have faith," he said.

He took the child and walked slowly to Vader. "The child is premature but otherwise healthy."

Vader ignored the baby and stared down at River. He turned his attention to Simon. "What happened to her?"

Simon felt a faint pressure at his neck and coughed. "She bled out," he said in a ragged voice. His cheeks glistened in the dim light. "I didn't have my emergency bag and I couldn't stop it."

Vader turned back and looked at the child. He reached out a black, gloved hand and touched the stone on the baby's blanket. "What is this?"

"That is _zhen yu_," Book said. "In Basic, it is called jade."

Vader nodded to one of his soldiers, who stepped forward and removed the child from Book's hands. The Shepherd lifted his chin. "Before you do what must be done, I beg of you not to kill my companions. You have what you want, and your master has his prize."

"I shall consider it," Vader said. Then, to the cries and horror of the _Serenity_ crew, Darth Vader flashed his blade across Derrial Book's neck. The shepherd's head fell with a thud to the floor, followed a moment later by his limp body.

Behind the crew of the Serenity, the Imperial contractor reached up and pulled off his blue gloves. With the Jedi gone, there was no need to use the sonic weapon he and his fellow contractors were known for. "What are your orders, Lord Vader?"

"Leave them, Car'das," Vader said. "Evacuate the system. Our first elements have already been destroyed. We are here for containment purposes only. These Far Outsiders must not be allowed to leave this system."

Jorj Car'das bowed. "Yes, M'lord."

Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, turned and walked toward the exit. The trooper with River's baby followed closely. The child cried angrily now, as if somehow knowing it was loosing its mother.

Car'das motioned for his own men to leave as well, and as Malcolm Reynolds and the rest of the crew of the _Serenity_ watched, the Dark Lord and the soldiers left.

Jorj Car'das alone remained. When they were gone, he turned and clapped his hands. "Well, what shall we talk about now?"

Author's Note: Please remember this is NOT the end of the story.


	25. Escape From Londinum

**Notorius JMG**--Book was a dead man. He's always been a dead man. He betrayed the Emperor. ;)

**Enfleurage**--HEHE. I genuinely enjoy Oh Crap! Moments.

**Elentari2112**--Thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

**Dude**--Truly, it's pretty desperate. And yet at the end, Jorge Car'das doesn't seem too concerned. I wonder why?

**Roosterman71**--Shhhh!

Thank you all for reading. I've got three chapters to go, including this one. And yes, Roosterman, you're right. River told Vos not to save her **yet**.

Enjoy.

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Five: Escape From Londinum**

Mal pulled his revolver. Zoe pulled her knew blaster carbine, as did Jayne. "You get one word why I shouldn't kill you where you stand," the captain said.

"Escape."

Mal blinked. "That's a good word. You get a few more now."

"Lord Vader said they were going to contain the Far Outsiders. That means they're going to destroy the whole system."

Simon rose slowly to his feet. "How can they do that?"

"A new weapon system. It's Admiral Tarkin's pet project," Car'das said. "This is going to be his proving ground for it."

"And why should we believe you?" Inara demanded.

Car'das shrugged. "I was told once by a very great leader that I have excellent insight into the hearts of others. I was pulled into this business, Captain. And this was to be my last mission. When I saw you at Greenleaf, and saw how you and your entire crew risked your lives to save those people, I realized that you were also worth saving."

He removed a hypodermic spray from his pocket. "This is bacta," he said to Simon. "It is the most potent curative agent in the galaxy." He removed a small set of electrodes. "And this is a defibrillator."

Simon stared at the man for a moment, and then took both. He immediately injected the bacta directly into River's distended stomach and then attached the small electrodes to her now bare chest. A red light appeared at the tip of each one. "How do I activate it?"

"It's already active," Jorj said. "It will continue applying shocks to the heart until it starts again, or until its charge is exhausted."

They heard a grunt and spun around to see Quinlan Vos stand from amidst the debris of the battle. He held a hand over his stomach wound and stumbled forward. "Do you have any more of that bacta?" he demanded.

Jorj nodded and handed over a patch. "It's unusual for Lord Vader to leave a Jedi alive," he noted with detached calm.

"I am Kiffar," Vos said darkly. "I can stop or start my heart at any time. Once I realized what River was trying to tell me, I knew I couldn't win. If I beat him, then everyone in this room would have died from the clone troopers. So, I let him strike a blow and stopped my heart." He put the patch on over his stomach and then collapsed to his knees by River.

"It's not working on her," Simon said desperately.

Vos put a hand on her stomach, just under the electrodes. He closed his eyes and poured the Force into her. "It's time to wake, my Love," he whispered. "She's gone. Our daughter is gone."

River's eyes fluttered open. The electrode's red lights went dark. "She's gone," River whispered weakly. Her eyes welled with tears again. "I knew it would happen. But it still hurts so much."

Vos nodded, and then pulled her into his arms. "I'm so sorry," he said to her.

"So what now?" Mal demanded.

As if on cue, the entire building shook and the report of a distant explosion reverberated through the center.

"We leave," Car'das said. "We leave, and we never come back."

Vos stood with River cradled gently in his arms. His face paled both from his own wound and the weight of her. Her bloody dress hung from them both. "Then let's go," he said.

They rushed out the same door used by Darth Vader and into a now deserted hallway. The hall did have windows, though. Through the windows they could see a rain of plasma falling on the city. Towers exploded under the onslaught as tens of thousands died.

"Even the Empire has difficulty with these invaders," Jorj muttered. "That's what Vader gets for throwing trash at them."

"What do you mean?" Vos said.

"It's been months since the Clone Wars ended. The Empire has already been producing a new type of star destroyer for peace keeping. The entire fleet here, except for Tarkin's ship, is comprised of old Clone War machinery with skeleton or droid crews. There are _Venators_ and Trade Federation ships, but it's all old compared to what the Empire is now building."

Vos shook his head. "_Venators_ are top capital ships."

"Not any more."

They reached one of landing pads on the edge of the tower and ran out just as a ball of plasma seared the air only a few hundred meters away. They looked over the edge of the platform as the Census Bureau building exploded.

Walsingham's hover van somehow still waited for them on the pad. They piled in and Wash instinctively ran to the pilot's seat.

"This is worse than Greenleaf," Wash muttered as he spun the van into the air. They were perhaps two kilometers away when the first plasma burst struck the capital building. All of them simply sat in stunned silence as Wash desperately flew them through the burning atmosphere of Londinum.

Vos held River to his chest as she silently wept.

"So what are you?" Mal asked suddenly of Jorj Car'das.

Car'das shrugged. "I was a smuggler until I met a remarkable man named Thrawn. I saw what real leadership was like. Through him I was recruited by Kinman Doriana and became a Sith Agent. I didn't realize it, of course, but I was serving the man who is now the Emperor."

"But you're helping us?"

"I'm working both sides," Car'das admitted with a conspiratorial wink. "About two years or so after the battle that started the Clone Wars, I was attacked by a Dark Jedi. I thought was going to die. But I was healed by a Jedi Master. I began to see things a little differently. I went independent with my smuggling business and have been very successful, but I still had this debt to pay to the Sith. I told myself it was no harm, since I was smuggling the bodies of fallen Jedi into your planetary system. Lorana Jinzler was the only exception, and frankly I didn't know what happened to her. I normally met with Kinman, who would then ship the bodies to Palpatine's front here, the Blue Sun Corporation. But the Vong showed up and changed everything."

Afolabi nodded. "Your Emperor did not plan on them."

"Not a clue. The Sith could supposedly see the future, but these Vong are outside the Force. And they made contact with the Reavers on Miranda first, so it looked just like Reaver attacks. That's how Vos got here." Car'das nodded to the Jedi Master. "He was injured by the betrayal of his soldiers on Kashyyyk and I told the Wookiees I could get him to safety. He was so badly injured it was a simply matter to sedate and detain him in a cryotank. I just loaded his tank into Kinman's shuttle when the Reavers, led by a Vong, attacked."

The van dipped abruptly and all speech stopped as Wash went into a wild series of maneuvers to avoid incoming fire. "We're coming up on the ship!" he called over his shoulder. "I don't think we're just going to be able to walk into it!"

Mal risked life and limb to unbuckle and look through the front window. "That's a lot of scared people," Mal noted. Terrified crowds broke through the fence line and easily stampeded past the bewildered Alliance soldiers and were surrounding every ship still on the field.

The captain pulled a transceiver from his pocket. "Looks like she's still secure."

"For now," Wash said.

The captain narrowed his eyes, and Wash recognized the look of a hard decision being made. "Hover over her, I'm going to go in through the bridge airlock."

"And?"

"Then I'm going to lift off and find some place to load safely."

"Sure you don't want me to do that?"

Mal looked out the window at the people pawing desperately at the hangar bays, or trying to climb up onto the fuselage. "People are likely gonna die when I lift off," Mal said. "Folks on Greenleaf had sense enough to get off when we lifted. Don't think these folks will. You want that blood on you?"

Wash paled, and shook his head.

The van came to a spot directly over the small access panel over the bridge. Mal opened the door to the van and jumped the three feet down to the deck. Around him, the air smelled acrid and bitter from the incoming enemy fire, and the smell of masses of people. The sound of their screams was as overwhelming as the reports from distant explosions.

"Help me!" one man called. "Save my son!" The man was holding up a boy of no more than five. The boy was crying for his daddy not to make him go alone.

Mal bit his lip, used his transceiver to pop the hatch, and climbed in. The sight of someone entering the ship caused a stir, and Mal barely closed and secured the hatch before a dozen people were on it, trying with bare fingers to pry it back open.

He started the engines the moment he reached the bridge. He stared down at the crowds and felt his eyes sting. He brought many of these people here. They thanked him and thought he was a hero. He was going to leave them all to die.

He couldn't do that.

He grabbed the com and switched to external speakers. "Listen up!" he shouted. The din didn't abate much, so he turned the speakers up to full blast. "I said listen up!" Those nearest _Serenity_ fell quiet.

"I will take one hundred-fifty people on, no more, no less. I will not open my hatch until every one of you backs up to the old fence line. I will only take parents with children. If you try coming onto my ship alone, I will shoot you. Back up, or I take off right now!"

The speakers were loud enough for Wash and the rest to hear. "What is he doing?" Wash said.

"He is doing what is right," Vos said. "Land the van directly in front of the loading ramp."

The first elements of the crowd were trying to heed the captain's orders despite the heavy press of people behind them. The dropping van convinced them to move faster. Wash made sure to land with the van door facing the ramp. They all piled out with weapons ready as Mal dropped the ramp.

"That van is my crew," Mal told the crowd over the speakers. "They're ready to shoot. Now, parents with kids line up."

As Wash ran into the ship toward the bridge, Quinlan Vos handed River to Simon and moved to stand alone before the crowd. He looked at the wall of people, and the sheer power he projected made them fall still.

"You and yours," Vos said, pointing to a young couple with their kids. "You, with the boy." The father who pleaded with Mal to take his son ran forward. "You, and you. And you." And so it went. With precision and authority, Vos choose who came, and who was going to be left behind. He did not hesitate.

One man started forward and almost started a riot, until Vos struck with Force lighting. The man flew backward, dead before he hit the ground, and the spectacle further terrified those close to them to obey.

Finally, the last family entered. "No more," Vos said. "I'm sorry, but any more and we will all die. May the Force be with you all."

He turned, and everyone ducked into the ship as the crowd rushed forward. The van proved their boon, providing sufficient blockage for them to close the ramp. Before it was even closed, Wash had the ship airborne.

Vos left the monitoring of the crowd to Jayne, Zoe and Afolabi. Through the Force he checked on River and felt her presence, weakened but awake. He then ran to the bridge where he found Mal and Wash weaving their way through the darkening skies of Londinum.

Something with too many wings going way too fast zipped by the front of the ship, followed by a pair of rocky Vong fighters. "What was that?"

"An ARC fighter," Vos said. "I've flown those before. If the Vong are already in the atmosphere then we don't have much time."

Their com system pinged. "This is Alliance Orbital control issuing a general retreat order. The Imperial ships appear to be falling back. We don't have any way of defending ourselves. Any ships that are space capable should withdraw. Maybe the Imperials will have mercy on us. This is a general retreat order. All ships, fall back."

Wash pushed _Serenity_ hard and she obeyed with finesse. Her nose climbed and she made a dash for orbit. The skies above them blazed like nothing seen before. Explosions lit the skies as Imperial ships blew up or Vong craft ruptured. The battle was so huge that it surrounded the whole planet in a sphere of ships, all of which were firing on each other.

"I'm not finding a good way out!" Wash said.

"Go way from the Vong," Vos said. "The Imperials aren't interested in wasting ordinance on Alliance ships." He pointed at a small civilian ship that was moving untouched between a pair of _Venator_ destroyers.

"Okay," Wash said.

_Serenity_ spun about almost on a dime and the two outboard thrusters burned at full power as the pilot shot the ship toward the Imperial picket lines. Beside them, one of the white and crimson _Venators_ began exploding. Wash couldn't help but watch as _Serenity_ paralleled the explosion and death of the massive ship. "My God," he whispered.

"Watch the fighters," Vos warned.

With an alarmed cry, Wash corkscrewed the freighter between a flight of ARC fighters, then dipped abruptly to avoid a _Victory_-class destroyer. That destroyer too began to explode, and the shockwave of the explosion threw _Serenity_ for a loop. "Will everything around here stop blowing up?" Wash demanded.

Suddenly, they were past the picket. The Vong were quickly closing, but had not yet arrived at the point of space they emerged in. Plus the Vong were concentrating on the Imperial ships, not a featureless little freighter.

The Jedi removed the black cube Valorum had given him from his robes and placed it into a previously unnoticed slot in the nav computer. "We're on the far side of the system right now," Vos said. "We're going to have to fly a tight orbit around the sun to reach the nearest hyperspace lane. Wash, the coordinates are coming to you now."

"Got them."

With that, the worst of the crises was over. Even with a small hyperspace jump, they were still an hour away from the tightest portion of their passage by the sun. Vos crossed the pantry and saw Jorj Car'das with the people below, working with Jayne and Zoe to contain them. As he continued across, he stepped into the pantry and saw boxes piled high with foodstuffs. Somehow, Valorum had managed to get _Serenity_ restocked.

That wasn't where he wanted to be, though. He continued through until he reached the infirmary. River was there on her back, looking up with a slightly drugged expression as her brother sat on a stool and leaned between her legs to repair the damage done during childbirth.

Vos came to her and took her hand. "Are you in pain?"

She smiled at him. "I've been thoroughly medicated. Like old times."

"She tore pretty badly," Simon said as he worked. "The baby was large." He looked accusingly at the Jedi.

Vos smiled wanly, and then turned his attention back to River. "I only understood what you wanted at the end, Little One. But I still don't understand why. We could have found another way. Why did you think we had to give the child to them?"

"She will be raised by a monster," River said, "but she will never be a monster. I saw her, Quin. I saw her. And saw what she will be. I saw that she will have a role in the galaxy. She'll be a hero. She will be a Jedi, like her father before her. I saw it." She began weeping then, gently under the calming influence of the drugs her brother gave her. "If we tried to keep her, you would have killed Vader, but then his soldiers would have killed us all. You said they almost killed you, and that they killed other Jedi. You know it's true. None of us would have survived if you killed Vader."

Vos held her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. "In your vision, did you see if you ever find her again?"

"It ended with her," River admitted. "I couldn't even tell if I ever saw you again."

Simon looked up then, and Vos also looked startled. "What do you mean?"

"I died," River said. "And when I did I saw things. Khaleen is waiting for you, Quin. She's waiting for you with your son. She loves you, and she's waiting for you. Just like she promised she would."

Simon saw a strange thing, then. He saw the rough, powerful Jedi master hold desperately onto River's hand while he wept.

* * *

Hours later, they emerged from their last short hyperspace jump on the edge of the supermassive star's inner gravity well. Almost the moment they reverted to real space, they saw something that wasn't supposed to be there.

"What is that?" Wash said as he looked at the nav charts. "There aren't any planetoids charted this close in."

"It's not a planetoid," Vos said. As they drew closer, they saw he was right. It looked almost like the skeleton of a geodesic sphere with several sections missing. The only intact portion was a core large enough to hold fifty star destroyers and a funnel which ran from the huge core to a massive sauce-shaped disc framed by the rest of the structure. Around it floated a fleet of ten ships larger than anything in the battle they just left.

Jorj Car'das chose that moment to step onto the bridge. "There it is, the Emperor's special weapon," he said. "Tarkin needed a proving ground for the superlaser technology, and the Emperor needs to contain the Far Outsiders. It's serendipitous for everyone except the poor people of the Alliance."

"What do you mean?" Mal demanded.

"Those shuttles you saw were allowed to leave the battle because none of them are hyperspace enabled. They won't be able to escape. They're going to make the star go nova. The Empire will contain the Far-Outsiders and anyone with knowledge of them."

As Car'das spoke, the huge dagger-like ships pulled away from the strange object and started flying along the same course _Serenity_ was following. "We'd better hurry," he said.

"We're at full burn," Wash said. They quickly approached the object and saw that the disk that comprised the only complete portion of the skeleton was pointing directly at the star. Suddenly six green beams of energy speared out from the emitters along the edges of the disc and seemed to meet and combine at an invisible juncture over the center of the disk.

The different beams turned into a single, thick beam that struck into the heart of the star. As the crew of the fleeing ship watched, the surface of the star seemed to collapse inward around the blast.

Something happened to the super weapon. A light shone brilliantly from the center of the core. A moment later it expanded and they could all tell now that it was an explosion. The explosions continued to escalate in brilliance and size, tracing a path up the funnel from the core to the disc.

Suddenly the whole weapon evaporated in an explosion dwarfed only by the storm on the surface of the star.

"I guess Tarkin's going to have to go back to the drawing board," Car'das said.

"Something's happening," Wash said.

They turned their attention back to the star, only it seemed as if they were accelerating away from it much faster than they should have been. The bridge became deathly silent as they realized what was happening.

"It's collapsing," Mal muttered.

"The blast must have destroyed something in the interior," Vos said. "It's no longer stable. It will collapse until the surface strikes the expanding, destroyed core, and the sun will erupt in a nova. Or possibly a supernova due to the mass of this star. Everything in the system will be destroyed, and it will probably eventually form a black hole."

"More important," Mal said, "we'll be corpsified as well if we don't get outta here _ma-shong_."

"We're at full burn, but we're still in the star's gravity well," Wash said.

Vos viewed the instrumentation at the navigation console. "Gravity fields are fluctuating like mad. This close in we'll only have a few minutes before the shockwave destroys us."

Made tiny by distance, the ship fled the death of their star as fast as it could. They could do nothing but wait was the sun continued its inevitable collapse. The end came in a brilliant, blinding flash of light. "This is it," Vos said. "We have two minutes."

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Wash shouted, though no one actually said anything to him. Others from the ship ran onto the bridge to see what was happening. Zoe saw the approaching wall of fire and grabbed her husband's shoulder, but otherwise said nothing.

Jayne took one look, shook his head, and ran back to his bunk.

Afolabi held up his chin. "No matter what happens, it's been an honor to work with you, Captain."

Mal turned and looked the man over. "Still kicked your ass."

"You did indeed," the former Operative said with a genuine smile.

Inara arrived, and without hesitation took Mal's hand in hers.

Suddenly Wash screamed and everyone jumped. "There's an open patch. We're going to hyperdrive!"

With the flick of a switch, Wash sent _Serenity_ spinning into hyperspace away from the exploding star.

* * *

Eight minutes after the star went supernova, the shockwave struck Londinum and Sihnon, and the fleets of ships still engaged in pitched battles. The clones manning the warships were never told that the bridges of the ships were being operated by droids, and the droids did not care about the imminent deaths. The clone fighter pilots were likewise kept ignorant. As was the case through the Clone Wars, they were considered expendable.

The Vong were caught in a pitched battle. Although they realized something was wrong, they were unable to withdrawal despite the overwhelming casualties they were inflicting upon the Imperials.

The shockwave boiled the oceans from the surface of the planets and then vaporized the soil itself; vaporized hundreds of millions, even billions of screaming, terrified people; it utterly destroyed the advanced elements of the Praetorite Vong and the combined Imperial Fleet battling them.

The shockwave continued throughout the complex, artificial system sitting on the edge of the galactic halo. Planets burned to cinders and exploded completely in a domino-line. In Shadow, Kat Reynolds and her son and daughter in law felt first a tremor, then heard an awful roar from the ground beneath them before they died.

The very last planet was Miranda. The Vong forces there detected the incoming shockwave, but even with the hours between when the sun exploded to when the shockwave struck them, they had insufficient time to evacuate the planet. The first planet in the galaxy to feel the feet of Praetorite Vong did not explode like the rest of the planets. It was far enough away that the shockwave merely boiled away the atmosphere and all surface features of the planet, while utterly destroying the worldships in orbit around it.

The last of the Vong in the system died.

Hundreds of lightyears away, an astrogation droid would note the supernova and make the calculations to predict the formation of a black hole. The gravitation distortions were already being examined and recorded, and a general article was sent across the holonet to advise of hazardous hyperdrive conditions in the outermost edge of the Unknown Regions.

Being unexplored space, none noticed. The death of an entire civilization was distilled down to a single sentence in an astrogation chart.


	26. What Now?

**bladefax**--Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it. Only one more chapter to go after this one.

**simply Eric**--Yes, this whole fic was written to propose that Mara Jade was Vos and River's child. I've been questioned about the differences in appearence, and I've had to admit that Mara's red hair was actually a careful dye job.

**sandcrawlr**--Thank you, and who knows, they might actually take up your suggestion.

**Tarva**--Indeed. Thank you for reading.

**Notorious JMG**--I did indeed. And no, they're not going to Earth. They're going to another world that has an interesting future ahead.

**larsbards08**--A very well thought out response, and not one I could easily argue with. The premise was sufficiently difficult that this is actually a complete rewrite of an original version I posted over at for a while. But you're right that the two universes had different focuses, aims and charms. That was the reason I narrowed the perspective of the crossover to a single character at first, only gradually exposing the greater mixing as the story progressed. I appreciate that you gave it a try even if it didn't quite work for you. Thank you.

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Six: What Now?**

"I thought hyperspace was fast," Mal muttered as he walked across the gantry. Below, his cargo hold had been converted into a tent city. Despite best efforts at sanitation, the whole ship began to stink with the crush of humanity.

Beside him, Vos moved with a somber expression on his face. "There have been several worlds we could have stopped at, but I believe we agreed a human population would aid in these people adjusting better. The world we are going to is sparsely populated with human colonists, and has a small community that I've had contact with in the past. It is the best place for us all."

Mal shrugged. In the week since they saw everything they knew destroyed, the ship had remained in hyperspace while they tried to figure out what to do next. Eventually they went through the charts provided by Valorum. It was Vos who picked their destination.

"Just a few more minutes," the Jedi now said.

They arrived on the bridge. Wash and Zoe were sitting in the pilot and co-pilot's seats talking. They both looked up as the captain and Jedi emerged. "Need your seat, Captain?" Zoe said.

Mal shook his head. "Nah, you look too comfy there."

Wash's panel started beeping at him. A moment later a blue-green planet rushed up at them with astounding speed as they reverted out of hyperspace. The four of them stood in silence for a long while, staring at the beautiful orb. "So that's Toprawa," Mal said.

Vos nodded. "It should not have a strong Imperial presence on it as of yet. More importantly, it used to have a small community of Antaran Rangers on it. Paramilitary forces friendly to the Jedi." He leaned forward over Wash's shoulder and pointed to a spot on the northern continent. "There should be a small community there. A simple space pad and a few ships. Set us down there."

Wash nodded and began the process of dropping down into the planet's gravity well. Vos nodded to Reynolds, and left the bridge.

By the time he reached their cabin, Vos found River laying on her side staring forlornly into nothing. She did not respond when he dropped lightly down the stairs. Nor did he speak. He simply sat down on her bunk by her feet, and rested a hand gently on her hand.

"I can't see," she said after a moment of silence. Around them, _Serenity_ shuddered as she entered the atmosphere. "I saw so much, but it's all black now. I can't see our daughter."

Gently, Quinlan reached down and gathered the girl in his arms, much like the first night after he took her off her psychotropic drugs. She sat there, clinging to his shirt, and after a time her shoulders began shaking as she sobbed. "I'm going to lose you too," she said into his chest.

"River…" Vos began.

She looked up with tear-streaked eyes and placed a finger over his lips. "You can't help it. You have a son. A woman waiting for you. They need you. They need you to survive."

"You need me too," Vos said.

River smiled weakly. "You gave me the Force. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for life. You've taught me to live. You've given me the power to survive. You have done everything I hoped you would, when I first found you. But we both know you won't stay with me. If we had our daughter, I know you would. But she's gone."

"I love you, River Tam."

She nodded. "I love you too, Quinlan Vos. And it's because I love you that I'm going to let you go and be the father you need to be."

They said nothing else, and he continued to hold her until they landed.

A single man stood at the edge of the platform when the ramp lowered. The refugees formed a hesitant wall behind Mal, Vos and the rest of the ship's crew.

The man looked blessedly ordinary. He wore a pair of blue pants not so different from what Mal wore, with knee high boots, a matching blue shirt and a brown coat. He wore a blue cap that looked like it could have come right off the head of a Sihnon baseball player's head. In other words, he looked completely familiar and human.

Vos stepped down the ramp toward the man and smiled. "Uldrik."

"Master Vos," the man said. "We feared you dead."

"I almost was. The Empire believes I am."

"We as well," Uldrik said. "There are few rangers left. We're laying low for now. I got your message. You carry refugees?"

Vos nodded back to the people behind him. "One hundred and fifty total. They are all that remain of a civilization of several billion."

Uldrik stared in disbelief. "Billion? What happened?"

"Extra-galactic invaders and a new weapon of the Empire's. Between those two forces, their entire system was destroyed. Uldrik, these are primitive baseline humans. They know Basic, if just a little, but they know nothing else about the galaxy at large. They lived in complete isolation. They are scared and lost."

"In this galaxy, so many of us are," Uldrik said. "We'll make a place for them here. You were right to bring them here." He walked with Vos up the ramp. "Captain Reynolds?"

Reynolds nodded and took the proffered hand. "Uldrik Tomail. I am the administrator for this community." He looked past Mal's shoulders at the scared faces. "We don't have much, but what we have we will share gladly. You, your crew, and your passengers will all be safe her. Welcome."

At the edge of the pad, a hover bus arrived. With obvious relief and a lingering fear, the refugees started down the ramp. Before they left, though, the first in line stopped beside Reynolds. It was a woman shorter than River, with two young children clinging to her legs. Mal looked down at her, then nodded.

The woman's eyes watered as she wrapped the captain in a desperate hug. "Thank you," she said before she took up her children and walked toward the bus. Mal started to say something smart to shrug off the emotion when the man behind her wrapped him up in a hug, and said, "Thank you," as well.

Inara moved up behind her man and, as the next person hugged him, whispered, "They need this, Mal."

And so Captain Malcolm Reynolds, who as a matter of habit, choice and upbringing absolutely despised public shows of affection, stood and allowed one hundred and fifty parents and children to give him hugs. Some were crying, some weren't. Some seemed almost upset, but still they hugged him and said thank you before walking down the ramp to the bus. Finally was the man who on Londinum asked the captain to save his son. The boy stood by his father with a strangely quiet, stunned expression on his face.

The father looked down at his boy, then at the Captain. "I owe you my life," the man said. "I will never forget that."

The man nodded one last time at the rest of the crew, gathered the boy up, and left. With that, the last of the passengers were off _Serenity_. Uldrik tipped his hat at them and then followed the refugees to oversee their integration into the community.

That left the crew and Jorj Car'das.

"Now what, Captain?" the smuggler asked. "Empire or not, the galaxy still has commerce and trade. You have to earn your living. What are you going to do now?"

Mal looked over the faces of the people who had become his family. Jayne looked as confused as the rest. Afolabi said nothing, but Mal and the rest knew that the former Operative grieved for the loss of Derrial Book.

Kaylee stood next to Simon and clutched his arm possessively. Simon did not appear to mind at all. Wash and Zoe stood side by side. Zoe waited for orders from her captain, and Wash waited to follow wherever his wife led. River stood near Vos, but he noticed they did not touch or hold hands.

Finally his eyes fell on Inara, so beautiful and calm.

Only then did he look over them at his ship. "This is my home," he said with a nod to _Serenity_. "These folks are my family. I don't need a world to settle down on."

"She's a fine ship," Car'das said. "Even by galactic standards, with hyperdrive and weapons she's as good a cargo ship as any you could hope for. A man could make a living with a ship like this. If, that is, he had the right affiliations."

"You're offering such affiliations, Mr. Car'das?" Mal said.

Jorj shrugged. "Well, you did save my life on Greenleaf. And you didn't have to give me a ride off Londinum, but you did. And truth is, Captain, I could always use an honest freighter captain. A man like you I would trust with the most sensitive shipments. And that, I can assure you, has money in it."

Mal held out an arm and placed it across Car'das's shoulders as the two walked back into Serenity. "Well then, I think we have some business to discuss," the captain said.

The others turned and walked up the ramp without hesitation, all save River and Vos. They stood staring at each other on the surface of the planet, close enough to touch and yet parsecs apart.

"The future is always in motion," Vos said. "We may yet see each other again."

River smiled weakly. "I wish I could see," she said. "I wish I could see past the blackness."

"Don't look with your eyes, or the Force," Vos said. Finally he stepped to her and took her hands in his. "Look with your heart. It might be months. It might be years, or even decades. But someday, we will see each other again."

She looked up into his dark, powerful eyes, and nodded. "And I will love you on that day, Quinlan Vos, as much as I love you on this day."

He bent over and kissed her passionately. Behind them, the thrusters of the ship roared to life. Their lips parted as the backwash from the thrusters caused a storm to whip around them. He said nothing as she backed away onto the ramp of the ship. He watched as she turned and disappeared further into the ship. The ramp rose and sealed shut behind her.

As the Jedi stood, _Serenity_ rose into the Toprawan sky, turned, and soared back into the black where she belonged.

That night on Toprawa, a young boy sat crying in a corner as the man who looked like his father touched a corner of his nose. The boy choked, paralyzed by terror, as his father's skin pealed back to reveal a monster.

The monster leaned forward until his sharp teeth nipped the boy's nose. "You are not worthy to sit in the same room as Nom Anor."

Uldrik Tomail and his staff found the boy's body the next morning, but found no sign of the father. They also noted one of their skiffs was missing.

Khaleen Hentz sat quietly in the cave and stared at the holocube as the message from Quinlan echoed in her ears. She looked over to the last vestiges of the Jedi Order to survive—Jedi Masters Tholme and T'ra Saa.

Both had been with Hentz on Nar Shadaa when Order 66 spread through the galaxy like a disease. Vilmarh Grahrk squatted beside the two Jedi Masters along with a pair of Wookiees that had accompanied them upon their landing. "He said he would see you in nine months," Grahrk said. "Before I got him on that transport out, he said he would return."

"It has been ten months now," Khaleen whispered. She looked down at the child wrapped securely in her arms. Korto was sleeping peacefully.

The Wookies that had accompanied them since they arrived on Kashyyyk snuffled among themselves. They smelled something, Grahrk said.

Everyone stood and looked from the bonfire to the darkness surrounding the great wroshyr trees where they gathered. Slowly, from the edge of the platform, they could see a figure silhouetted against the night.

Khaleen felt her breath catch as Quinlan Vos emerged from the shadows into the flickering firelight. "My love," she whispered.

She ran to him, and they came together in a desperate hug. She felt his grief as if it were her own, and attributed it to not seeing the birth of his son. "This is Korto," she said. "This is your son."

Quinlan stared down at the child in silence for the longest time, before tears welled in his eyes. "I thought I would not make it," he whispered. "It's been so long. I thought I missed you."

"We waited, my former padawan," Master Tholme said. "For you we would wait." The venerable Master turned a prosthetic eye on his former pupil closely. "Much happened to you while you were gone," he observed.

"Much," Vos agreed. He held Khaleen tightly to him. She was so different than River. She was lush and ripe, with a body that screamed WOMAN and an attitude that demanded all around her respect that womanhood. She was everything he thought he wanted.

By Kiffar tradition and the birth of their son, she was his wife. "I am where I belong," Vos finally said.


	27. Ghosts of the Future

**sandcrawlr**--Thank you, I appreciate that.

Well, only one review, but that's okay. We've made it to the end. Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed. I really appreciate the feedback.

* * *

**Author's Note**: The meeting in this chapter between Vos and one of our favorite canon characters is from the Dark Horse comic Ghost. The events described in this last chapter are inspired partly by his appearance in that comic, and what I believe are the inevitable progression of events in the New Order.

**Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ghosts of the Future**

The young freighter captain moved through the junkyard on Socorro with alert, inquisitive eyes. He held a blaster in hand and made sure it pointed where his eyes went.

Quinlan Vos watched the young man with mild amusement, until the swoop gang that had been hunting the old Jedi burst over the ridge. The young man ducked and rolled and would have been killed instantly if Vos did not Force-pull him to safely.

The swoop gang spun about, looking for their quarry, but after failing to locate it, continued with their hunt.

"Who were they?" the young man said when he spied Vos.

"Bounty hunters," Quinlan said. "They have been chasing me for weeks. They believe I am Jedi."

The young man snorted. "Must be high on spice," he said. "All those crazy old wizards are long dead." He looked around. "Hey, there's supposed to be some type of treasure here. Known anything about it?"

Before Vos could answer, a huge Whiphid bounty hunter jumped down from a pile of junk and struck the young man down. His blaster went sailing against a jagged, rusting piece of equipment and broke apart. Vos responded instinctively by Force-pushing the bounty hunter. The Whiphid groaned as his fell into the same equipment that broke the blaster. A jagged piece of metal ripped up through his chest.

Other bounty hunters returned, and both Vos and the young treasure hunter scrambled for safety. The young man did not see the pit until he was almost in it. With a startled grasp, he started falling forward into a massive Sarlacc pit.

He cried out when his fall came to an abrupt halt just over the pit. He looked down into the massive creature's clasping beak, then back at Quinlan. The Jedi stood on the edge of the pit with his hand outstretched. Slowly, the young man drifted back to the edge. "How did you do that?" he demanded.

"I'm just one of those crazy old wizards," Vos said with a grim smile.

Suddenly the bounty hunters were there. They formed a ring with blasters ready. Vos stared at the young man a moment, then smiled dangerously. With a solute, the Jedi master jumped directly into the Sarlacc pit.

"No!!" one of the bounty hunters roared. "Now we'll never get that bounty!"

"We still can," another said. He pointed at the young man still standing with a stunned expression on the edge of the pit. "Shoot him. We'll pass his body off as the Jedi."

A ring of blasters directed their aim. Before they could fire, though, a humming sound seared the air. A moment later Quinlan Vos flew out of the Sarlacc pit with a green lightsaber in hand. With efficient strokes and preternatural speed, he sliced easily through the bounty hunters. After only a minute of fighting, he ended the fight once and for all.

"You're sword was in that Sarlacc?" the young man said.

"Sometimes the Force will lay a path before us that even we do not wish to walk." The Jedi smiled sadly. "I had a family. My son would have been close to your age."

"I'm sorry," the young man said. "You know, I don't really believe in the Force."

"Don't worry," Vos said. "Soon this will all seem like a distant dream, and I'll be nothing more than a ghost."

Vos disappeared with Force speed. Han Solo shrugged and walked away with a shake of his head. "Crazy old wizard."

Thinking of Korto, Vos returned to the Bounty Hunter's ship. His own was destroyed utterly, just like the house on Tattoine where he and his family had lived. Once he was identified, they had come for him, just like they had come for Master Tholme and T'ra Saa on Nar Shadaa.

He remembered Khaleen reaching for him as she cradled their ten-year old son. Korto took the brunt of the first blaster bolt as the army of bounty hunters invaded them. Khaleen used her body to try and protect the boy as Vos fought off still more of the cursed hunters. All for naught. He felt as if a piece of his heart was ripped out of his chest when the presences of his wife and son faded from the Force.

Now, two years later, he was once again alone. He boarded the bounty hunter's ship and lifted off from Socorro. He had no destination in mind. He was wanted all over the galaxy. The Inquisitorius had his features plastered in every Imperial outpost across the galaxy, and the half-million credit reward for him ensured every bounty hunter would keep an eye out for him.

He let the Force guide him, entered the coordinates, and let the ship fly him off to oblivion.

* * *

When he woke several hours later, the ship emerged over the world of Chandrila. On the surface, it seemed an odd place to go. Chandrila was an ancient Core world. Immeasurably civilized, the world did not boast a single armed ship. There were no bounty hunters there, though, so it seemed the safest place.

He arrived on the planet as Captain Vilmahr Reynolds. He had no ID, but Chandrila control didn't require it.

Steeped in guilt and pain, the Jedi left his ship and wondered through the space port until he came to the first bar he could find. He had a few credits from his previous life as a droid technician on Nar Shadaa and ordered a bottle of Corellian whiskey.

He was halfway through the bottle when someone took a seat beside him. "I'll have what he's having," a man said. The voice seemed familiar somehow, as if out of a distant dream.

The newcomer received the bottle, poured a glass, and then said, "_Shu ma nyaow_. Stuff is awful. Give me a glass of Londinum Bourbon, now, and I'll show you a man's drink."

Vos turned and stared at a ghost. "I saw the name Reynolds on the landing board and thought maybe I had another brother running around," Captain Mal Reynolds said. "Instead I find you. Just my luck."

The past twelve years gave Reynolds time enough to grow a well-trimmed beard lined in gray, but had no other discernable effect. "What are you doing here?' Vos asked.

"Shipping wine," Mal said. "Got a pretty lucrative contract for one of the better Chandrilan wine makers. I make the run pretty much every six months." He shook his head. "Still hard to get used to your calendar. So, how you doing?"

Vos shrugged. "As good as a fugitive could be.'

Mal nodded wisely. "Yeah, I know all about that. I heard tell you had a family."

"Had."

Mal nodded again. "You know, funny thing happened. Wife and I were in our bunk, just minding our own business, when River just walks on in. Her timing was pretty awful, but she didn't even blink. You remember her? She says, 'We need to make the Chandrila run early this month.' Didn't know what she was going on 'bout, but she's steered us right these past few years. Cried like a little girl when Jayne got shot." Mal's eyes hardened. "That was a bad day. But that was no fault o' hers. She did her best. Since Zoe and Wash had their babies and retired, she's been co-pilot and my second, and we've done good. Went independent from Car'das and his organization, and we got 'nough creds socked up that we bought ourselves a little ranch. Can you believe that? Inara 'n me are be ranchers on Naboo. Have kids, too. Three little darlings."

Mal stopped talking and looked closely at Vos. "You didn't hear a gorram thing after I said her name, did you?"

Vos sat up straighter. "Is she well?"

"Why don't you ask her?" Mal winked, and then nodded toward the door behind them. Vos turned as if afraid, and saw.

River Tam stood alone just inside the door of the bar. She wore a spacer's vest over a revealing brown shirt and beige pants. A blaster hung low on her right hip. She bore herself with a casual lethality that made the young couple sitting at a table near her get up and leave.

She had filled out with age. No longer was she the whip-thin child he remembered. She was a woman. Still thin, but mature now. And strong.

He almost stumbled from his stool and crossed the floor until he stood before her. She reached up and touched his chest. "I was lost," she said softly. "I was lost, and you found me. You taught me how never to lose myself again." She stepped closer and leaned up until their lips met. "And now I'm going to do the same for you. You're lost. But I've found you."

Quinlan stared down into the dark depths of her eyes, and felt his heart surge. "I'm home," he whispered as he wrapped her in his arms. The tears followed moments later. "I'm finally home."

* * *

Naboo was a peaceful world in more ways than one. Not only did it keep only a fledgling defense force, but its people were so deeply civilized that even celebrities did not cause a stir.

Such was the case when Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and his newly wedded wife Mara Jade Skywalker arrived for a negotiation to finalize the return of the Gungans to the surface of the planet.

The treaty was civil. Luke's involvement was more a ceremony than anything else. His newly discovered parentage made him especially treasured by the Naboo, and it was in a way fitting that the son of Queen Amidala and the Hero of Naboo, Anakin Skywalker, would be the one to formalize the re-colonization of the Gungans to their native lands.

His wife, a powerful Jedi herself, toured the planet extensively. She moved like a bright rose among the duller Naboo. Her brilliant red hair and the striking robes she wore always made her the center of attention. And yet, on Naboo that meant quiet respect rather than throngs of admirers.

When Mara and an escort from the palace moved into the market, there was no rush or press of people holding out their hands to touch the wife of Luke Skywalker. Rather, they smiled and nodded to her gently as she moved from stall to stall.

Mara herself couldn't say what directed her feet that day. She only knew that something stirred her to turn from the fabric stalls and go toward the jeweler. He was a large man, his head shaved to just a short layer of graying hair. A faint yellow line on his face marked him as a Kiffar. He wore white pants and a black vest cinched in leather, and bent over working with obvious skill on a piece of jewelry that caught her attention for some reason.

"You like what you see?" he asked without looking up.

"It's extraordinary," she said. "What is that stone?"

"You should recognize it," the man said with a wry smile. He finally looked up. Something about the set of his eyes made Mara pause. "It is Jade. Naboo has a natural abundance of it."

"You shape it well."

The man shrugged, then held it up and seemed to envision it on Mara. "What do you think, River? Is this the right one?"

Jade nearly jumped when a petite woman in her early fifties appeared beside her. Even with her lifetime of training, she neither sensed nor felt the other woman approach.

River looked Mara over repeatedly. "You are so beautiful," she said.

Mara felt her cheeks flare. "Er, thank you."

River looked at the piece the jeweler was holding up, and nodded. "It's perfect."

The older woman took it, and then very carefully placed the silver and jade bracelet on over Mara's wrist. "We made it for you," she said. "We just didn't know it was you we made it for."

Mara gaped, trying to make sense of that strange statement.

"It is a gift," the jeweler said. "Something to remember us by."

River stepped around the stall and stood by her husband. Mara stared at them, surprised by how perfect they seemed together. "This is surely too much to give for free."

"Consider it a gift for your lifeday," he said.

"Today is not my lifeday," Mara said.

The woman named River, who seemed as ageless as the man beside her, smiled. "Are you sure, Mara?"

Mara shrugged. She never knew her exact day of her birth, so technically it was possible, however it seemed highly unlikely. Still, "Well, thank you very much."

"It was our pleasure, Mara Jade Skywalker," the jeweler said. "You are a beautiful, powerful woman. You've overcome much to be where you are today. I'm sure your parents, wherever they may be, are very proud of you."

Mara smiled. "Thank you," she said again. "I…" She stopped and realized she didn't know what else to say.

River smiled. "Your husband needs you. Go to him, and be happy."

A second later Mara's com beeped at her. She looked down and saw it was Luke signaling that he needed her signature as a witness on the formal treaty document. She looked back up, but inexplicably the stall was empty.

She looked back down at the exquisitely detailed bracelet and the large piece of jade set in it, and smiled. "Thank you," she said again. Then, "I'm coming, Farmboy. Keep your boots on."

The End.


	28. Author's Notes and Responses

Responses:

Responses:

Dude—Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Roosterman71—You're welcome, and thank you for reading it. I'll get back to you later about that HP fic.

Tarva—The story was over. And it was always about Mara Jade. Always.

Sandcrawlr—At this stage in their lives it was enough for River and Vos to know Mara was happy, and that she was a good person. They did not want to intrude on that with past agonies.

Azral—I'm glad you've enjoyed reading the stories. And I do have one or two new fics in the pipeline, not least of which is the Legacy of the Red Sun sequel.

Uwen11—Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

ScreenSurfer—Eh, why not. I think there actually was a Yutani allusion in Firefly, but it's been a while so I might be wrong.

So, notes from the Author, in case anyone cares:

Well, that's it for another Darth Marrs story. I don't have as many as some, because my stories tend to be a tad on the long side. At over 70,000 + words, this was actually one of my shorter ones. (Legacy of the Red Sun I consider a single long story in three parts).

When I first started writing a SW/Firefly crossover (originally titled Children of the Blue Sun) I always knew it was going to end with Mara Jade Skywalker encountering River and Vos without ever truly realizing who they were. This was the vision I had from the first story. However, with Children I also had a role for Lorana Jinzler just because I thought she got short-changed in Outbound Flight and deserved more story time. Unfortunately, she was completely extraneous and even started to slow the story down. So, I scrapped that whole idea after about 50,000 words, and started from scratch. Which, considering my Legacy of the Red Sun sequal is now titled Children of the Red Sun, was quite serendipitous. I was able to salvage some parts, but the whole thrust of the story changed. It became a mystery. What was the Blue Sun Corporation? Why did Miranda really happen? What was the point of the things done to River? By addressing these times, I was able to do a completely immersive crossover in which there was no difference between the Firefly universe and Star Wars. They were one and the same. And when they met, well—that was another reason for the method I chose. In outright conflict, the Alliance never had a chance. So why write about that type of conflict? The Alliance military never really had a role in this story at all.

The introduction of the Vong was also very early in the initial concept because of the surface similarities to the Reavers. The Vong provided the perfect outside antagonism to Force the Empire into taking more drastic action, which of course led to the fall of Mal Reynold's universe.

It was never intended as a happy story. I tried my best to have moments of humor and happiness, but this was always intended as a drama. A tragedy, even. But one with a hopeful and sweet ending. Although this one did not garner the reviews as Legacy or Gods of Dark and Light, I admit that I am prouder of it for the plotting and characterizations. So I am very proud of those nominations, win or lose.

Well, enough talking about my story. Thank you all very much for reading, and for the nominations. Your reviews are the reason I keep doing this, even though I should be working on my original stuff.

Thank you again!

Darth Marrs


End file.
